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By all accounts, the Georgia Section Ares Meeting, hosted by GEMA at the GA Public Service Training Center in Forsyth on January 20, 2001, was a tremendous success! Not only were there nearly 100 ARES members, EC's, DEC's and Section Officials, but we also had honored guests from the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, National Weather Service and Georgia Public Broadcasting.
Dan Brown, GEMA Communications/Operations Officer, welcomed everyone to the meeting, and was a most excellent host.
Lans Rothfusz, KD5EJN, the new Meterologist-In-Charge at NWS Peachtree City, spoke about how he was so impressed with Amateur Radio, ARES and SKYWARN in his recent experience at NWS in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that he became a ham himself. Now that he is Meterologist-In-Charge at NWSPTC, he plans to more formally solidify the role of Amateur Radio in aiding in warnings, severe weather reports/confirmations, and infrastructure. He also announced that soon-to-be-ham, Barry Gooden, will be focusing more on working through emergency management directors in the counties to set up SKYWARN training programs (not only does Lans want Barry to get a ticket, he also wants him to get a life!).
Finally, Mark Fehlig, WA6NGC, the new Chief Broadcast Engineer for Georgia Public Television, spoke about some of the very exciting plans for GPB over the next several years. The most exciting news was that because of the FCC mandate for broadcast organizations to move to digital broadcasting, GPB will be making changes to the antenna systems on all of their towers (GPB provides state-wide coverage of GPTV television and Peach State Public Radio). As part of this process, they have had to inventory existing structures, and are in the process of "legitimizing" everything in place (because as we hams have seen in recent times, deals "done on a handshake" cannot last forever--just ask the guys who've lost tower space due to commercial acquisitions of their towers). The GREAT news is, there is a ham as Chief Broadcast Engineer, and he sincerely wants to see amateur radio on each of these towers--his view is that amateur radio is as much a public service as GPB, and that there is a real synergy between the two that will better serve the public interest. Lowry Rouse, KM4Z, Georgia Section Emergency Coordinator will be naming a coordinator for this effort in the very near future.
And if that wasn't news, the BIG NEWS of the day was the announcement of Val Ashcraft, AF4VH, Effingham County EC, as Georgia Section ARES Amateur of the Year! Congratulations Val, well deserved! Great job!
Lowry Rouse, KM4Z, GA SEC, and Sandy Donahue, W4RU, GA SM congratulate Val Ashcraft,
AF4VH,
as the Georgia Section ARES Amateur of the Year.
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Contact Lowry Rouse, KM4Z for questions or additional details about this Georgia Section activity.
Back to the Georgia Section Activities and Announcements page.