Good day ALERT friends, ham radio, Skywarn Spotters!

If you’ve noticed, we’ve taken down our info on BMXSpotterChat, which was served to ALERT by Weather.IM for a number of years. Recently, there was a spammer/bad actor, who prompted the administrator of the server to set every chat room to read-only. Unfortunately, that impacts ALERT, thus we have been testing a new solution, to resolve this issue.

The proposed solution is able to support Skywarn spotters and ALERT membership, as well as separate/private areas, and much more. An email with full details was sent to everyone in our membership/newsletter list.

Calls to Action:

If you haven’t had a chance to attend a meeting in a while, this would be a good one to join, coming up on February 9, 2021, to be introduced to the proposed solution (and voting members, if there’s a vote/motion on the floor).

If you aren’t on our monthly mailing list, or need an invite to the meeting, kick us a message on Facebook, or via email: feedback at alert-alabama dot org. (Please allow up to 48 hours for reply.)

See you at the upcoming virtual meeting!

Friday, December 4th @ 6PM Central Time (Dec 5 0000z to 2400z), Skywarn Recognition Day kicks off, and continues for the next 24 hours.

The National Weather Service office in Birmingham is represented in Skywarn Recognition Day by ALERT (The Alabama Emergency Response Team) as the callsign K4NWS.

Skywarn Recognition Day is an event celebrates the contribution of SKYWARN volunteers to the NWS’s mission. More information about the event, including Operating Procedures for the contest, Participating Offices, Echolink Info/IRLP info, all can be found at the link below. Also, NWS request you fill out the Registration form so NWS can associate your operation with a specific NWS office, the form can also be found at the following link:
https://www.weather.gov/crh/skywarnrecognition

To make contact with us via Amateur Radio:
HF: 10,17,15,20 Meters
2M FM 146.880 (BARC), 147.320 and 146.980 (SCARC)
220 FM 224.500
70cm FM 444.700
DMR Talk Group 31013 which is available on all DMR repeaters in the Birmingham area but is also available on various repeaters in the BMX county warning area.
D-Star: REF058B or REF090C/XRF334C
AllStar: 48168
EchoLink: K4NWS-L (155003)
IRLP Experimental Reflector: 0091
WinLink: K4NWS (at) winlink (dot) org

In 2020 and in response to COVID, SRD was expanded outside of Amateur Radio to include all Skywarn Storm spotters.
Here are some ways to contact our station that are not Amateur Radio:

Zello: https://zello.com/channels/k/duTMd
Telegram: http://t.me/K4NWS
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/K4NWS/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/K4NWS
MeWe: https://mewe.com/join/alert

Our participation in SRD in previous years can be found here:
http://alert-alabama.org/SRD/index.htm

The National Weather Service has informed us, that out of caution to ensure that the NWS staff at each office is able to continue to support their mission to protect life and property, that the BMX office has been given direction to temporarily suspend non-essential visits (public, volunteers, tour groups, etc) to the forecast offices.

The impact to ALERT is, for the next 30 days, unless there is a change in direction, any K4NWS callout or activation will be done remotely, and we will use NWSchat’s BMXEMACHAT room to coordinate communication with the forecast office. This is similar to some office workplaces choosing to work remotely, to keep risks low, and is not a reason to panic.

As we enter the peak severe weather season for Alabama, this is a great opportunity to ensure that our home station PC and radio equipment is tested, working, and is ready in case we have an event where we can serve the NWS remotely. We have the technology.

We are checking on having a permanent chat for ALERT operators only, to coordinate when needed. We can also create temporary chats in NWSchat, so I would suggest calling it K4NWSCHAT if a temporary room is needed.

However, let’s please remember that we can also use the Weather.IM BMXSPOTTERCHAT option as well, which allows us to communicate with other Skywarn spotters and those who are unable to be approved for NWSchat access.

Don’t forget, we also have DMR, which can be used to help bring us together, as well as other ham radio technology. 

Stay tuned to the CDC and other agencies for continued information, and remember, there’s nothing wrong with having a healthy suspicion for unsolicited emails (phishing/malware links) or social media posts about COVID-19 which are clickbait.
No need to panic, but now it’s the best time to be educated and prepared, rather than fearful. We pray for all those impacted by COVID-19, and hope that we all stay healthy and well.

Good afternoon!

Our April 9th regular meeting is one to not miss!

At the February meeting, sent an amendment back to the board for some edits to strengthen our bylaws. Not due to any incidents – we’ve put this off for 4-5 months, but just to update with the times to be similar to other clubs in an unlikely event. Please be sure to be at the April meeting if you are a voting member, if you would like to bring any further discussion items regarding the amendment.

Link below is the most recent amendment/edit for the upcoming vote!
https://alertalabama.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/Eaa9CRDN7x9MoGuUvM2b_lQBrd9ZJXJVXqqFixkRbhP_Ug?e=F8RgKn

The April meeting is when the nominating committee reports the result of their research for the next year of ALERT Officers! If you are interested in serving as ALERT Officers, and have been a voting/operational member in good standing for over a year, you may qualify! Let Justin Glass or Bill Rodgers know! May will be the general election for ALERT officers for the next year, and nominations can occur from the floor from any Support/Operational member.

Due to recent/rapid technology changes, I’m thinking I need to focus more on that training and tech side of the house, so I and the new year’s President-elect (once the election happens) will need the full support of the membership, to fill our ALERT Officer positions and call-outs!

I thoroughly enjoyed presenting to Tuscaloosa Amateur Radio Club this month, as well as the rest of the meeting. Cool seeing some 3D printed stuff! We look forward to May 4 2019, Black Warrior Hamfest. http://www.blackwarriorhamfest.org/

After recent meetings and discussions, it’s apparent that we need some station materials to be updated. I’ll be taking down a 20 year old piece of paper with an old policy, as well as putting up a station startup/shutdown checklist for K4NWS. This should be an operational aid, so that we are covering our bases in callouts – such as logging into bmxspotterchat and NWSchat, or what to do if the PC isn’t behaving as we’d expect.

The only other thing top of mind, is to keep promoting DMR/D-Star contact for our counties, as we have had little contact with them for too long in my opinion. 🙂 If we can’t hear/be connected to the 39 counties of the warning area, it makes it hard to collect spotter reports. Lee County came to mind for me.

Hope you all have had a wonderful weekend.

Casey Benefield, NZ2O