All AREN members are requested to attend the meeting in the Clonmel Park Hotel, poppyfield retail park, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary. The meeting will be commencing at 10am Saturday the 6th of February, and is scheduled to finish at 5pm.
Any non members are welcome to attend, though please contact John, EI7IG (contact details) beforehand to let us know, as we have to indicate numbers to the hotel in advance.
The Sean Kelly Tour took place last Sunday August 30th, and from all unofficial accounts it was quite successful with roughly 2700 hardy cyclists taking to the roads.
Saturday evening, AREN was requested to assist Waterford County Civil Defence in maintaining an accurate location of as many of the three different sub-events (50k, 100k and 160k) as possible. The intention was to allow Civil Defence them to more efficiently deploy their own medical resources around the course and to keep the event organisers more informed. Extensive use was made of the APRS protocol and of the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group’s APRS digital repeater network. It definitely proved it’s usefulness on the day as it allowed AREN members in Net Control to keep both the the Civil Defence and event organisers updated as to the locations of various vehicles almost in real-time through out the day
Many thanks to EI2KA, EI8FDB, EI5GOB, EI2GN, EI3IQ, EI2JP, EI7IG, EI8EPB and EI8JA for their assistance on the day.
Bernard, EI8FDB diligently logging at Net Control:
AREN went on alert for the duration of the Severe Weather Warning over the 17th-19th of January. Weather observations were co-allated by EI2GN on an 80m net on January the 19th commencing at 09:30, and a report was subsequently submitted to Met Eireann. Many thanks to all operators that responded from all parts of the country.
After the initial meeting, John Ketch, EI2GN is now representing AREN on the Cork/Kerry Area Voluntary Emergency Services Subgroup. It is anticipated that there will be further meetings with a view towards enhanced co-operation held during 2009.
On the 24th of August AREN members made good use of the APRS Network, in order to keep track of the position of the end of each group of cyclists participating in the Sean Kelly Tour. Good use was also made of the South East Repeater Network for communicating with officials in what would have been communications blackspots (for the mobile phone networks).
In total there were 8 operators involved,
Many thanks to all that participated and to the repeater keepers for permission to use the repeaters.
