Cowlitz County Frequency Information:

The Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) is a voluntary organization of licensed radio amateurs who have registered their capabilities to provide emergency communications as a public service to the community in the event of a natural disaster or when regular communications fail.

Every licensed amateur regardless of membership in ARRL or any other local or national organization is eligible for membership in ARES. The only qualification, other than possession of an Amateur Radio license, is a sincere desire to serve. Because ARES is an amateur radio service, only FCC licensed amateurs are eligible for membership.

At the local level our primary task has been to provide emergency communications to service organizations, i.e. Cowlitz/Wahkiakum Counties Red Cross and many others in the event of an emergency.

ARES in each locality operates under the direction of the Emergency Coordinator (EC), Randy NU7D nu7d@aone.com, whose function is to direct the activities of ARES and maintain an active list of radio amateur volunteers to meet the local needs.

ARES is sponsored by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), and consists of over 600,000 radio amateurs who have registered to volunteer their services.

Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) is an organization of dedicated licensed amateur radio volunteers who provide radio communications in support of state and local government agencies during times of an emergency or disaster.

As defined in the rules, RACES is a radio communication service conducted by volunteer licensed amateurs, and is designed to provide emergency communications to local or state civil-preparedness agencies. Races operation is authorized by the FCC upon request of a state or federal official and is strictly limited to official civil- preparedness activity, in the event of an emergency-communications situation.

Amateurs operating in a local RACES organization must be officially enrolled in their local civil-preparedness group. RACES operation is conducted by amateurs using their own primary station licenses, and by existing RACES stations. RACES is part of the amateur service and it operates in the amateur bands. The segments of the amateur bands it uses are shared with the rest of the amateur service in time of peace. In the event of war, its frequency segments would be exclusive.

RACES Operator (RO) in Cowlitz County is appointed by the Cowlitz County Dept. of Emergency Management. Randy NU7D, nu7d@aone.com is the Radio Officer for Cowlitz County. Ed N7CFA, n7cfa@kalama.com and Steve K7SH, shart@aone.com serve as Assistant Radio Officers.

RACES is sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), that provides radio communications for civil-preparedness purposes only, during periods of local, regional or national civil emergencies.

It should be noted that RACES and ARES licensed operators can hold dual registration in RACES and ARES. Further, it is encouraged by the ARRL that licensed amateur radio operators are registered/certified as both and that cooperative effort between RACES and ARES organizations be established and maintained.

The SAR Council consists of organizations within Cowlitz County that play a role in Search and Rescue operations. Each having their special skills and training. Depending on the type of search and rescue mission, one organization may be the lead unit, while other units assist in various ways. Over the years of commitment, the SAR Council has always had one goal, to help anyone lost or injured for whatever reason.

The Lower Columbia Amateur Radio Assn. (LCARA) is the contact unit for the radio amateur volunteers. The Ham ELT/SAR Team is the team that represents LCARA on SAR Missions. The ELT/SAR Team provides the SAR Council with two primary functions. First is the team experience for radio direction finding of ELT and EPIRB beacons. The second is communications. Generally, most of the communications are not on the amateur band during search and rescue operations.

Over the last decade, the radio amateurs in Cowlitz County have participated in many ARES and RACES missions.

The ARES missions or assignments are generally are laid-back and easy-going. They deal with communications for service organization in the local area. One of the largest ARES public service activities, is the Walk-N-Knock Food Drive. Others ARES activities are: Tour-De-Blast, http://www.tdn.com/tourdb/ a bike ride up to 120k from Toutle Lake to the Johnson Ridge Visitors Center (near Mt. St. Helens) and back to Toutle Lake; The Multiple Sclerosis Walk; March of Dime's Walk America; Diabetes Bike-A-Thon; the RSVP's Haunted House and various training.

The RACES missions take on a more serious attitude. These missions deal with lost or injured person or destruction of property. The radio amateurs in Cowlitz County that are active in RACES, i.e. ELT/SAR Team, have been involved with: Missing or lost persons; Drowning missions; Evidence searches (body and weapon); Homicide scenes; Downed aircraft; Road blocks; Mt. St. Helen Volcano eruption; Massive flooding and many other weather related incidents.

Both ARES and RACES receive training from Cowlitz County Dept. of Emergency Management and various County agencies.