On August 18th at 8:00pm Franklin and Jefferson County ARES groups will be conducting a Simplex Exercise.  We will start at 8:00pm using the LEARS/ARCOM repeaters to announce the exercise and take check-ins.   The Net Controls will be at their County EMA office and the purpose is to simplex to surrounding towns and counties.   At that point the Net control for your County will announce which frequency to QSY to.      Also, we are practicing Relay skills  If one station can hear someone but the Net Control cannot, when Net Control asks for Relay, announce you have a relay and when Net Control stays go ahead state your call sign and say what station you heard trying to check in.   This all can be done from your home or mobile station. 

Shelter Net 146.4250   Evacuation Net 146.4750

CQ CQ CQ “This is an EXERCISE, repeat This is an ECERCISE:”

This is the Amateur Radio Emergency Service 2-meter simplex communications exercise. The purpose of this exercise is to test emergency communications using 2-meter simplex frequencies in Franklin, Jefferson and surrounding counties. We will take check-ins on this local repeater then we will QSY to the designated simplex frequency for testing.

After you make contact or if unable to make contact on the simplex frequency return to your local repeater frequency (LEARS/ARCOM) for further instructions. 

Lets try to make this a fun learning experience

The LEARS Club will be holding a class for those interested in getting their HAM License.  This will be for the Technician (entry level) license, and will be targeted at those completely new to amateur radio.  Classes will be held beginning August 4th 2016, 6PM in the Benton Hospital Conference room.  The class is expected to meet each Thursday night for 8 weeks, with a test session being held on the final class September 22nd.  The class itself is free, but the test does have a $15 FCC fee.  We should be able to accommodate as many students as necessary, but it would be appreciated those planning to attend could email class@learsradio.org so we have a rough count.  Questions can also be emailed and we will respond as soon as possible.