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Polk County Amateur Radio Emergency Service, ARES, provides emergency and public service communications to our served agencies. Getting the message through “when all else fails”.
Hurricane Milton Update – Updated 10/15/24 16:35 EDT
Click here to read the FINAL update on Hurricane Milton on the West Central Florida Section Web site.
As of 16:35 on Tuesday, there were still 149,120 electric customers without power in the state of Florida. In Polk County alone, the number of customers without power is 3,297. These numbers will improve as the hard working power crews make progress in restoring power to the affected areas.
Polk County Schools Update
Our team continues to work diligently to prepare for PCPS schools to reopen for our students and staff.
However, our schools must remain closed on Monday, Oct. 14, and Tuesday, Oct. 15. We expect to reopen our campuses to students on Wednesday, Oct. 16.
PCPS district staff will begin returning to work on Monday (Oct. 14), and school-based staff, including teachers, will return on Tuesday (Oct. 15).
Thank you for your patience and support as our entire community begins to recover from the impact of Hurricane Milton.
Repeaters with known issues at this time:
146.865 W4PSR Polk County Schools Radio Society is currently OFF THE AIR.
The issues on the NI4CE repeater system (both FM and NXDN) are back to full operation.
Our September meeting was canceled due to the impacts to our area from the storm. The meeting presentation titled “National Preparedness Month” is now available at the link below.
The next Polk County ARES meeting will be on Thursday, October 24, 2024 at 7pm (doors open at 6:30pm).
At the LWRA meeting on Thursday, September 12, 2024, a presentation was made on NTS traffic handling and Radiograms. The Training page, accessible by clicking here or on Training at the top of the page, has updated resources for this topic. There is also a link to the W4PXE Net Operations Forum presentation that was discussed by Darrell, KT4WX. I have included links also to the two YouTube videos that can help you excel in your abilities as a traffic handler.
ARRL Issues First Release Update to the ARES Taskbook in Several Years
ARRL Emergency Management is pleased to release the first update to the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) Emergency Communicator Individual Task Book in several years. You can read the story about these new Task Book changes in the ARRL “On The Air” magazine Sep/Oct 2024 edition.
To view the new ARES Standardized Training Plan – ARES Emergency Communicator Individual Task Book, click here.
To watch the video (released 10/10/24) about the Task Book changes from the “On The Air” podcast, click here.
*** New ARRL EmComm Courses Available ***
ARRL Learning Center Features Two New Emergency Communication Training Courses to train emergency communications operators for volunteering within ARES. A new Basic EmComm as well as an Intermediate EmComm training course are now ready for you to take. You can read more about these two courses by clicking here. Links to both of these courses are also available on the Training menu option at the top of this page.
SARNET Update
The Lakeland SARNET repeater on 442.275/+ with a tone of 82.5 is operational, however, the connection to the SARNET system from the Lakeland (FX1 site) is poor. Since some time in April, the repeater is receiving signals from SARNET, albeit weak and noisy. Transmissions from the SARNET Lakeland repeater were being heard on SARNET, but reception of SARNET is noisy. This could just be conditions but we have had times when our transmissions were not being heard on SARNET.
Thanks to Polk County Emergency Management, an alternative radio and antenna to access the SARNET system from the Polk County EOC has been provided. While SARNET in Lakeland is down, our current plan until the link is repaired is to use the Tampa SARNET repeater on 442.850/+ with a tone of 146.2.
One of our served agencies, CERT, as well as other emergency communicators, have a GMRS net on the Polk CERT repeater. (note: This is NOT an ARES net, but welcome to all FCC licensed GMRS operators interested in emergency communications)
Have you ever wanted to know if a ham you know also has a GMRS license? Well, you can find out by clicking this link.
The Polk ARES ICS-205 and Polk County ARES Band Plan have been updated. You can find them under the Operations menu option at the top of this page.
Our focus is on preparation and training for wireless communications during disasters and public service events. A Statewide Florida Emergency website has been opened. Come check it out.
Winlink RMS Gateways in Polk County
144.930 WC4PEM-5
144.950 W4PSR-5
The Imperial Polk County ARES Net is held every Wednesday at 7:00pm EST on the following frequencies on the Polk County Emergency Management, WC4PEM, repeater system:
This is a wide area linked repeater system. Pick the repeater located closest to you. You should be able to reach one of our repeaters with a 5 watt HT from anywhere in Polk County. If you are not, please contact Polk ARES through our contact page and we will help you find an antenna solution.
The repeater is Echolink accessible (Echolink node 3363).
Click here for a coverage map of the WC4PEM repeater system.
The WC4PEM D-Star Gateway repeater located in Bartow is on 444.4875. You can view the dashboard for this repeater by clicking here. (note: this repeater is a D-Star Gateway and is connected to the Internet. It is NOT linked to the FM repeater system)
