We had a rousing discussion via Zoom for the Advanced Training session.  The meeting was broken up into two parts.  In part one, we discussed a variety of topics regarding what kinds of things we want to cover in future Advanced Training classes.  In part two, we talked about the pending Salt Lake County ARES "basic load" of radio frequencies, particularly what frequencies MARC wants to put into the "club specific" portion of the load.

Upcoming Class Topics

• backup/emergency power
  • Solar panels (portable and permanent mount, charge controllers, etc)
  • Batteries and charging/maintenance
  • Cabling, power loss and heat
• go kits (vhf/uhf, hf, “shack in a box”, ultra-portable, etc.)
  • Security of equipment
• antenna modeling with software
• packet radio
• running a traffic net
  • Procedures, forms, etc.
• SOTA/POTA
  • Equipment, using your go kit, portable antennas, power, etc.
  • Shelter 
• HF operations/procedures
• Mobile radio installation, don’t break your car or your radio
  • HF, VHF/UHF
  • Grounding, cabling, antennas
  • Mobile CW?
• Grounding and bonding, electrical/lightning (not the same)
• Practical/advanced DMR
  • Demos, experimentation
• Other digital voice modes
  • System Fusion
  • D-Star
• HF Digital Modes
  • Packet
  • PSK31
  • FT8
  • FT4
• Radio over Internet
  • IRLP
  • Echolink
• Field day/Contesting
  • Techniques for handling pileups, etc.
• Controlling your audio
  • Speakers, mics, parametric equalization, etc.
• How to get more participation in the advanced class
• Logging
  • Paper logs vs. Software
  • LOTW
  • QRZ
  • QSL cards
• Antennas
  • Stealth
  • Building various antenna types
    • Pringles can yagi
    • Dipoles
    • Beam antennas
  • Safety (tower, electrical, etc.)

SLCo ARES Basic Load - MARC Frequencies

If you have suggestions for changes to this section, additional repeaters or frequencies, or anything else about the SLCo ARES basic load, please send them to Dan (N7XDL).

Dan (N7XDL) talked with us about emergency communications, a topic near and dear to all of our hearts.  Part of the presentation included a couple of videos from Josh Nass (KI6NAZ) from his Ham Radio Crash Course youtube channel.  Josh has a playlist of videos related to emergency communications, and the we were treated to the first two videos with Dan's commentary and our own comments along the way.

The first two videos are embedded here, but you should still check out the whole playlist as there is a lot of good information there:

Other things we discussed included CERT training here in Murray, maintaining a good communications plan, and being prepared.  Dan also has some additional resources that I will be adding to this post over the next few days, including the Salt Lake County ARES communication plan and recommended radio channel load.  Stay tuned for more details!

Here is N7XDL's codeplug in 7z format, you can unarchive this file and then import the individual files into your own codeplug.  MARC_Presentation_CodePlug

Here is the slide deck in PDF format:  DMR Overview

Here is the slide deck in PDF format:  PREPARING FOR FIELD DAY

Here is the slide deck in PDF format:  APRS Overview