Hi Folks,

February has been another busy month, and I’ll start off with letting you know that we have several people who have stepped forward to accept new positions. Those are:

Gary Pike, KA4KBX – West Central DEC

Guy McDonald, K4GTM – Southeast DEC

Russell Lane, KJ4NMU – Lowndes County EC

Michael Crowder, AA4BA – NWS-DEC – Greenville

Steve Bramham, W4SKB – Georgia State Patrol DEC

Jere Couch, N4DQ – Barrow County EC

Ron Hill, N4SFU – Emanuel County EC

Dan Scott, KF4NMD – Long County EC and NWS-DEC-Charleston

That’s a lot of changes and I hope I didn’t leave someone out. In particular, Michael and Dan taking the two NWS positions bring us to a full complement for that position, which might be a first. Gary taking West Central fills a position long vacant, as does Steve in the GSP position.

Robert Tyler and I have been trying to keep up with all these changes, and think we are now current. My worry is that I had a computer crash back in December and a number of important emails and addresses I was working with got tossed into the wind. A few days back Robert sent me this to add to the column for this month…

“We wish to thank each and every one of you that have taken on a leadership role in the Georgia ARES organization.  We apologize if we have not handled your requests for EC and AEC name changes, database authorizations, and packets being sent out in a timely fashion. 

We have recently had several personal computer problems and even our server had a few glitches that needed to be resolved this past week in the middle of the monthly reporting.   

We ask for your patience, as we are volunteers, like you. If we have not resolved an issue you have with the website, the database or anything else, please notify us again via Email. We know that some of your requests have fallen through the cracks and we want to resolve that as quickly as possible.  We hope to have several new links on the Website in the next week to make it easier for you to request changes.   Thanks again for your understanding and patience…73 de Robert”

This also brought out the fact that some of you are a little uncertain on how to actually make these changes, and to help there; I had another submission from David Benoist, who is one of your Deputy SECs… 

“There has been some confusion and response issues with getting AECs updated on the DEC/EC list on the GAARES web page http://www.gaares.org/php/dec-ec-summary.php. 

This is mostly a communications problem.  Bear in mind this pertains only to updates for AECs and not ECs and DECs.  DEC/EC updates must be handled directly through the Section Emergency Coordinator (SEC) or Section Manager (SM).  Here is the procedure for submitting updates for your new AECs.

When making any updates, please show removals separately from additions.  List the names of AECs being removed from the list by name and call sign.

For making additions submit the following information for each AEC:

Name

E-mail address

Call sign

Snail-mail address *

Phone number *

Note that the snail-mail address and phone number WILL NOT be posted on the web site but is used as a way of alternatively contacting the AEC by the GAARES staff.

E-mail your entries to: robert@nativegeorgian.com AND copy SEC Mike Brown (ke4fgf@surfsouth.com) and SM Gene Clark (w4ayk@mchsi.com).  Update entries will not be made unless Mike and Gene are copied.

Bear in mind that because of reporting updates the best time to submit your entries is in the middle of the month (10th through 25th).  Please allow a few days for updates to be made….73 de David”

All timely information, and I’ll also mention that new ECs are submitted by the “Geographic DEC” in charge of that particular District. ECs and higher positions have to be ARRL members, and those appointments go through me, on to Gene, and from Gene to the ARRL so everything stays “official.”

I’ll add my apologies to Robert’s here, as I knew some things would fall through the cracks when my computer crashed, and I’ll freely admit I don’t remember as much for as long as I did when I was 25. So, if you were left out, it WAS NOT intentional.

So we have a lot of stuff going on around the state, and I’m enjoying reading about it in the various newsletter links you’ve sent in, plus the comments I see in the monthly reports the ECs are sending in. Bet you thought no one ever read those…huh?

One more thing and I’m through. Our NWS-DEC for Tallahassee, Stewart, KJ4GOJ, has been busy arranging Webinar style Skywarn classes, both basic and advanced for anyone in the state (or outside for that matter) who is interested in taking them, and doesn’t have any classes happening in their vicinity. There is one of each scheduled for March. If you’re interested and want to know more, email Stewart at kj4goj@yahoo.com and he’ll get you the information you need to take part. If you have non-ham friends who are interested, they can join in too (maybe get them hooked on ham radio in the process!)

Until next month, be safe out there, and 73 de Mike