Hi everybody and welcome to your September 2013 Newsletter. We had a great meeting last month & I would like to welcome our newest ALERT members, Dale Chambers KD4QHZ, John Gray KF4LKO, Jay Hamaker KK4ORI & Matthew (Matt) Hamaker KK4PTB. Welcome aboard! Our next regular meeting will be September 10th at 7 PM. There will be a short Board of Directors meeting preceding the regular meeting, scheduled at 6:30 PM. I hope to see you there! …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Tropical Advisory Notifications For many years I have received tropical updates via email from the National Hurricane Center. Recently GovDelivery discontinued this service due “to the substantial costs of providing a messaging service at this scale with high reliability”. This of course left me with the dilemma of finding another source for this information. Well, I have good news as I have found an alternate source for the NHC advisories. This source is courtesy of our cousins at the Hurricane Watch Net (HWN). The HWN operates WX4NHC for the National Hurricane Center. The net activates on 14.325 MHz when a storm is within 300 miles of a populated land mass. The HWN provides a free email advisory service, which includes a Tropical Wea Continue reading →

Hi everyone and welcome to your August 2013 ALERT Newsletter. I hope this finds you well. If you missed the last ALERT meeting, you missed a good one. We had a great turnout and many interesting things were discussed. Among the various topics that were discussed is news that the NWS is wishing to make an “in house” list of the contact information of Operational Alert Members who physically respond to callouts at K4NWS. This information will be gathered so that, if necessary, they can contact you if they feel they need additional information as they review the K4NWS storm reports & to clarify any details that they are unsure of. This list will be a private list and will NOT be given to the media or other entities. It will be for internal NWS use only. More details on this will be available at the August meeting. Also with the August meeting there will be our first Board of Directors meeting, probably following the regular meeting. The timing is still tentative. I Continue reading →

Hi everyone & welcome to your July ALERT Newsletter. July will be a transition month for ALERT as we welcome our new President Ronnie King as he assumes the reigns of leadership. There will be an upcoming Board of Directors meeting and Ronnie requests that if there there any items that you would like for the Board to address just drop him an email at wx4ron@gmail.com so he can add them to the meeting agenda. Our next regular meeting will be July 9 and dues are due! To respond to ALERT callouts and have access to the NWSChat system you must be an Operational ALERT member. To remain an Operational ALERT Member you must be a paid up member. If you are not paid up you can’t participate. So make sure to renew your membership at the July meeting! Dues for Operational and Supporting Members are $20 per person and $10 for each additional family member. Membership for students and senior citizens over 65 is $10.Some members have been known to pay for two years. If you choose this method, make sure to let us know, so we can keep track as the year changes. Continue reading →

Hi Everyone, I hope all is going well with you. To start our lengthy newsletter, I’ll just give a quick reminder that the ALERT elections will be held at our June 11 meeting. I urge you to attend and let your voice be heard. I hope to see you there! ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Broadcast Irresponsibility This is the only way I can kindly describe it, as I sit listening to a replay of Oklahoma City’s KFOR Meteorologist Mike Morgan telling his viewers at least eight times to get in their cars and drive south of the city as a large rain wrapped tornado rapidly bore down on the city. Though admitting that the interstate was already a “parking lot”, since it was rush hour, he later advised people twice to “abandon your cars” as the storm reached the city. “Unfortunately there are hundreds and hundreds of cars on the road……a lot of people are panicking trying to leave their house…..you really can’t move very much.” – Chase Thomason KFOR See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX7uzdfktB4 & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnCP4TMhUTo Of the ei Continue reading →