This evening we will go into some detail about the  Hillsborough County SKYWARN frequencies and procedures...and will touch upon some frequencies for neighboring areas and states.

The objective for any SKYWARN Program is to help save life and property. While this is a universal goal at all National Weather Service Offices...there are vast differences in topography, type and amount of severe weather (ie. Tornadoes and severe thunderstorms vs. Hurricanes or Coastal storms), and general repeater coverage that results in different ways for spotters to report their information.

The current program for Hillsborough County operates primarily on two meters and 70cm. 70cm radio is the main mode of communication for this area ...although an 800 phone number to the Taunton Massachussetts National Weather Service Office is also used. All of the frequency information that follows is available on the web, at http://www.qsl.net/kb1dfe.

The primary SKYWARN net takes place on the Pack Monadnock 70cm repeater, 443.350 MHz with a PL of 110.9.  Nets are also likely to be active on the N1IMO-N1IMN linked repeater system, and on the Nashua repeater.  

The hub of the N1IMO system in Hollis, NH is on 146.730 MHz with a PL of 88.5.   This repeater also has a remote receive station in Derry NH, same frequency, but with a PL of 127.3.  If you have trouble accessing the Hollis two meter repeater, try changing your PL to 127.3 and see if you can access Derry.

These two meter repeaters are linked to many other repeaters in and around Hillsborough County, including:

A net may also be active on the Francestown NH repeater 146.685 PL 136.5. 

In case of very heavy traffic, or repeater failure, two simplex frequencies will be used to bring up nets...147.42 as primary, and 147.48 as secondary.

It is very difficult for one net control station to cover all of the repeaters all of the time.  Net control may ask for stations to start nets on the secondary frequencies.  If you are able to, please volunteer your services to act as NCS on one of the secondary frequencies. Your responsibility will then be to bring up a net, collect weather observations or damage reports, and to pass that traffic to net control on the primary frequency on a regular basis.  Guidelines for net control operations are available on the web and in Word format in the Western Hillsborough County SKYWARN Operations Guide.  The web site is http://www.qsl.net/kb1dfe.

NWS Taunton will often check into local repeaters to pick up observations.   Remember that NWS Taunton covers Cheshire and Hillsborough counties in New Hampshire, as well as all of Massachussetts and parts of Connecticut.  They will not be able to spend much time on any single repeater, and so all communications to the NWS station must be of importance, and brief.

If a formal SKYWARN net is in progress, please let the net control station decide how traffic will be passed to NWS.  The net control station may pass the traffic directly, or may ask you or other stations on the net to pass traffic.  If you have information to pass to NWS, please observe net protocol and ask net control for permission to call the NWS station.  Traffic need not be in formal NTS format, but should adhere to the NWS weather reporting criteria.  The  reporting criteria that NWS is looking for is listed on the web site, and we will cover them in coming weeks.

The primary liasion frequency with NWS Taunton is the Pack Monadnock repeater on 443.350 PL 110.9.  Also, NWS frequently comes up on the Mt Wachusetts six meter repeater on 53.310 PL 71.9.
 

Formal NTS traffic can be passed to the Granite State FM Traffic net, which meets nightly at 20:30 local time on 146.940 in Concord.  Russ - KA1OTN, an Assistant Emergency Coordinator for WHC,  is the liaison station for WHCARES to the GSFM Traffic net.

Formal NTS traffic can also be passed to the Granite State Phone net, which meets nightly at 18:30 local time on 3.942 MHz, and on Sundays at 09:30 local time on 3.945 MHz.   These frequencies may also be used to bring up ARES or SKYWARN nets should the need arise.

A local packet node can also be used to pass NTS formatted traffic.  The frequency is 145.030 simplex, and the packnet node name is BBSSNH.

All of the information just given out is available on the web at http://www.qsl.net/kb1dfe.