We look forward to meeting everyone in Lough Derg House, Dromineer, this coming weekend for a training and social event.

Could those attending please confirm with Conor, EI4JN, and we look forward to seeing you there.

Attendees can arrive on Friday night or Saturday morning.

Saturdays activities will include practical training and a taste of GlobalSET. It will wind down with a tour of the local RNLI station followed by dinner before moving on to the Whisky Still bar for ‘craic agus ceoil’ with local trad’ musicians.

An afternoon finish on Sunday will ensure you are home early that evening. Our host, Declan EI2GE, has kindly arranged generous rates for accommodation and meals. Full details will be circulated to members in due course.

EI2GN, EI3ENB, EI7IG, EI5GOB and EI8JA turned up on the morning, and quickly set about the task. As the mobile command post was being set up, APRS was deployed into the sweeper vehicle for the 90k event, however the 160k sweeper had already left so a plan was formed to intercept the 160k sweeper later in the day, and EI3ENB, was dispatched to a food station to carry items to a Civil Defence ambulance already deployed to that station.

Below are a series of screen shots (from Xastir) depicting the progress of the event during the day.

Screenshot 1, EI3ENB en-route to Clonmel, and the 90k Sweeper is visible just outside Dungarvan.

Screenshot 2, EI3ENB is in Clonmel, EI8JA is heading to Rathgormack to let us know when the head of the 160k arrives there. 90k sweeper is nearing Bunmahon. Civil Defence Officer is at the Tramore foodstop.

Screenshot 3, 90k sweeper is almost in Tramore, EI8JA is in Rathgormack.

Screenshot 4, CD Officer has moved to Rathgormack, EI8JA has moved to Mahon Falls, EI3ENB has taken up station at the tail-end of the 160k and is acting as a sweeper.

Screenshot 5, EI2GN has gone to relieve EI8JA at Mahon Falls, 90k sweeper has left Tramore.

Screenshot 6, EI3ENB reached Rathgormack, 160k sweeper was located and an APRS tracker was quickly installed in his vehicle. EI3ENB then headed for home. CD Officer has moved to Mahon Falls.

Screenshot 7, 160k Sweeper has passed Mahon Falls, 90k sweeper has almost reached Dungarvan.

Screenshot 8, CD officer has returned to Race HQ and is satisfied that AREN can close down operations, 90k has finished, 160k sweeper is nearly back to main Dungarvan – Waterford Road.

All-in-all the day was very successful. Civil Defence were very appreciative of the information being supplied to them by us. Amateur Packet Reporting System (APRS), was used both for status updates/short messages, and, obviously for position reporting during the day. This meant that our own voice channels were kept free for more important traffic, and, in fact, very little voice traffic was passed during the day.

APRS worked very well.  This year EI3ENB brought along a Micro-Trak AIO which was given to one of the walk leaders to carry.  It worked quite well and gave excellent, trouble free service over the duration of the weekend. EI8JA and EI2JP both had Yaesu VX-8Rs with them which also worked very well. Extensive use was made of the mobile Kenwood TM-D710s in vehicles to act as digipeaters for the lower powered units.

The first screen-shot is from Saturdays log (cleaned up a bit)

The second from Sunday.

The third is also from Sunday, but this time using the latest OpenStreetMap additions to Xastir

The performance of the Micro-Trak AIO was quite surprising, but allowed us to keep an eye on the A-Walks progress on both the Saturday and Sunday. Amateur Radio operators involved included EI5GOB, EI7IG, EI8JA, EI2JP, EI3FFB and EI2GN, totalling approximately 124 volunteer hours over the weekend.

• Review of previous years activities
• Update on the Major Emergency Management Process
• Update on training materials
• Update on ARENs use of maps and mapping data.
• IARU HF emergency operating procedure workshop
• APRS workshop
• Update on use of NBEMS and Digital Modes on shortwave NVIS

The AREN Mobile Command Post (MCP) was in attendance for everyone to inspect. and a a wide ranging discussion on various aspects of Emergency Communications was had. Many thanks to all who participated and I look forward to working with everyone during 2010.

John Ronan, EI7IG

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.

Many thanks to those who participated, have a good Christmas, and we look forward to meeting everyone early in 2010.