The Sierra Blanca Amateur Radio Club (ARC) was formed more than 20 years ago.  Many local hams have enjoyed the Saturday morning breakfasts and the clubs 146.920 (-600 Khz, No tone) Radio Repeater system.  Club members would help as needed with any emergency communications, but no formal organization existed for Emergency or Public Service Communications.  

In 1998,  J. P. Kenmore K5FBK (then KC5FBK) and Rick Sohl KK5RIC wanted to form up a formal organization to provide Emergency and Public Service Communications Support.  The two had began some ham radio classes earlier and these new hams could provide the needed manpower to began a program.  

In early 1999, J. P. contacted the Lincoln County Emergency Manager Connie Hooper and with Y2K upcoming, she readily agreed to help a program start up.  Rick wrote up the original plan for a joint ARES and RACES program.  The county commissioners approved the plan.  A simulated disaster exercise was planned for next month, so the Lincoln County ARES / RACES teams were formed, trained, and evaluated in less than sixty days.  Most of the new hams signed up and trained in the new program.  Most of the older hams joined in the fun as well, so the program was operational.  

Bill Kaufman K6YEJ New Mexico EC for the ARRL and New Mexico State RACES Officer coordinated the teams integration with the rest of the states ARES and RACES programs.   Rick signed on with the Bill's state team preparing for Y2K.  Rick helped plan and execute a state wide Simulated Emergency Test (SET) to train and evaluate the ability of the Amateurs in New Mexico to handle Y2K Emergency communications.

Bill K6YEJ, runs a state wide ARES / RACES Radio net on High Frequency (HF) the first and third Sunday.  This net is open to all amateurs interested in Emergency or Public Service Communications Support.  In very short order the Lincoln County check-ins to this net reached the highest in the state on many of the nets.  

The next year saw our first Communications Support for Forest Fire Events, with the team members learning the procedures during actual events.  In 2000 a Major Forest Fire event required the full team to work at maximum effort.  Such events have become an annual event for the team members.  This year 2002, we started our annual fires season early with a major fire that burned 29 homes and one barn.  The team was ready and did the best job they have so far.  We set up two networks, the first was the local net using the Sierra Blanca ARC repeater and the second was a state RACES net with direct communications to the Santa Fe NM, state EOC.  We have expanded the leadership of our team, expanded the amount of HF stations available and expanded our trained operator stockpile. The Club expanded the repeater capability by building a complete secondary back up repeater system.

FAMOUS LINCOLN COUNTY CITIZENS FROM 1870'S TO CURRENT.  

                                                                                                                                     Smokey  Bear  

Please check our Links for URL's related to these famous folks, but they were all Lincoln County Residents.