Amateur Radio Emergency Service commonly known as A.R.E.S.® is a dedicated core of communicators providing communications in times of major and unforeseen disasters; without picuniary (financial) compensation. To provide communications services when all OTHER FORMAL MEANS OF COMMUNICATIONs fail.
There is no substitute for actual practice. Your emergency net should practice regularly--much more often than it operates in a real or simulated emergency. Avoid complacency, the feeling that you will know how to operate when the time comes. You won't, unless you do it frequently, with other operators whose style of operating you get to know.
2009 Feature Stories
December 2009
When All Else Fails—Amateur Radio, the Original Open-Source Project
- Linux Journal
- “When all else fails”—in 2003, the Amateur Radio Relay League used this as the motto for Field Day, the annual demonstration of its capabilities to the public. It rapidly became the touch phrase for the Amateur Radio Emergency Service.
April 10, 2009
Preparing for disaster: -- Silicone Valley Mercury News
Within an hour of learning that phone lines were down Thursday morning in Morgan Hill, severing the 911 system, police officers were dispatched to rouse the members of the city's emergency response team.
March 30, 2009
-- theleafchronicle.com
CLEVELAND, Tenn. - At the center of the technology network that tracks severe weather, there are still human eyes and ears.
Storm spotters are the volunteers who get the alert when emergency weather threatens. They drive out to see what they can see and report back.
February 12, 2009
-- ARRL News
A rare winter tornado struck Oklahoma around dinner time on Tuesday, February 10. According to various news reports, Oklahoma officials credited Amateur Radio operators with spotting the tornadoes and relaying the information to the National Weather Service.
February 1, 2009
- Free Republic
When more than two feet of snow gave way to rain and heavy flooding earlier this month, Supervisory TSO Donn Gallon of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport put his skills as an amateur radio operator to good use.As Gallon put it, he was “flooded in place” in his home on the Skookumchuck River in southwest Washington for more than two days.
2008 Feature Stories
July 13, 2008
-The ARRL News
Initial reports suggest that the antenna they were installing came in contact with 7620 V power lines. Neighbors reported a "loud popping sound" and the electricity went out on the block.
