Yearly Housekeeping
Just a reminder, member dues are due at or before the July 2019 meeting, when the new officers take office. If you are a 1 year member, interested in serving in an appointed position, please let President-Elect Johnnie Knobloch know, at his callsign at ALERT-Alabama.org
If you are interested in joining with ALERT in our mission, feel free to reach out! We have members from all walks of life and many amateur radio groups – the more the merrier!
Introducing… 2019-2020 officers for ALERT!
Congrats! At the May 2019 meeting, the following officers were elected by acclamation. We have quite a diverse and strong array of skills within ALERT, serving the NWS and amateur radio’s link to the NWS!
- President: Johnnie Knobloch, KJ4OPX
Johnnie is active in the amateur radio community, wearing quite a few hats! He’s currently serving as Jefferson County Emergency Coordinator for ARES, LDS Emergency Coordinator, and Vice President of the Central AL chapter of the National Weather Association. - Vice President: Lauren Chambers, KN4UAQ
Lauren is serving as VP for the remainder of the year, and brings to ALERT skills from her involvement with being a Major in Civil Air Patrol service. She is a Six Sigma White Belt (process improvement intro), has FEMA ICS100-400, IS700 and 800, Red Cross Shelter Operations certificate, Basic Life Support certification, and nonviolent crisis intervention training. - Treasurer & Membership: Bill Rodgers, K4FSO
Bill continues as treasurer into this term. Bill is also quite active in amateur radio by day, and IT Systems Engineer by night (or the other way around, depending on the week)! He’s one of the guys that set up amateur radio, allowing middle school students talk to astronauts on the International Space Station, among other projects. - Secretary: Justin Glass, N0ZO
Justin continues as secretary into this term. Justin is a VE for Laurel VEC, administering free amateur radio license exams, with Central AL ARC. His mobile amateur radio setups are quite nice, and I’m starting to think of him as a master of remote control and IoT (Internet of Things). - NWS Liaison: Russell Thomas, KV4S
Russell continues as NWS Liaison and Station Trustee. Russell has brought us much greater digital amateur radio integration, such as bridging DMR, Echolink, AllStar, D-Star (XRF), in an effort to make it easier for areas not reachable via VHF/UHF to connect with ALERT and K4NWS (National Weather Service Birmingham). He is instrumental with experimenting with technologies that may aid ALERT in its mission to get ground-truth severe weather reports to NWS, as well as liaising with other regional Skywarn groups, as we work together to cover edge counties.
Duties for Officers:
- President
Appoints the nominating committee of 2 members in March for next election.
Presides/conducts all meetings.
Votes only in case of tie at regular meetings.
Secures meeting space for meetings.
Appoints committees for specific tasks, be a member of committees.
Appoints non-elected officers: Operations, Public Information, Training. - Vice President
In event that the President is unable to perform duties of office, the VP steps in to perform the duties in absence, and if necessary becomes President and holds office for the remainder of the term. - Treasurer & Membership
Receives all monies, and maintains accurate record of all receipts and expenditures.
Reports activities and treasury status at each monthly meeting, including regular/emergency expenditures.
Maintains member roster and collects dues, notifies members of dues becoming due. - Secretary
Maintains the official minutes of meetings of ALERT.
Maintains copies of bylaws and keeps a record of all changes to the bylaws.
In the event of the President and VP becoming unable to fulfill the office of President, the Secretary would hold the office for the remainder of the term or until a special election can be held to fill the vacancy - NWS Liaison
Serve as the official contact person between ALERT and the NWS for issues/changes in radio operations that need to be addressed by ALERT/NWS.
Keeps and updates the official callout lists and schedule.
Upon NWS request, issues call-outs to the NWS, coordinates the response/shifts.
If needed, contact responders and remind them of scheduling.
Provides NWS with a ‘callout tree’ of personnel who may initiate callouts, in the even the liaison officer is unavailable - Operations (Appointed by President)
Resolves any communications problems outside the NWS (repeater, link trouble).
This officer has charge over ALERT-owned computer and communication equipment, with leeway to modify, repair, augment or enhance ALERT’s capabilities as he sees fit.
The Operations and NWS Liaison Officers shall work to keep the training officer informed of any new procedures and equipment, to keep members updated. - Training (Appointed by President)
Maintain and update the procedures manual for operations at the National Weather Service.
Provide workshops at the NWS to all Operational Members of ALERT, intended to provide hands-on training in the operations of the K4NWS station Amateur Radio and computer equipment.
As new equipment and technology is adopted, the training officer shall provide update briefings or trainings to members to keep them aware of the changes. - Public Information (Appointed by President)
Be a liaison between ALERT and news organizations.
Currently, this includes web/social media engagements, as our involvement with the news is somewhat limited. Hamfests and contact with other radio clubs is often a part of the position. - Board of Directors
Appoints or continues the trustee of the K4NWS callsign. The board of directors reviews challenges to membership approval, member standing, discipline, constitutional amendments submitted to the board (to present to membership), hardship review for dues, and conducts any other ALERT business not delegated otherwise in the bylaws.
Meetings are held every June, September, December, March, or any time the President calls a special session.
*Board meetings, except for executive session, are open to ALERT’s voting membership. The board is composed of President, Immediate Past President, Station Trustee, A two year term at-large member, a one year term at-large member, appointed by Presidents. Terms can be consecutive.
In ALERT/K4NWS’s last callout activation 4/14/2019, K4NWS was joined on the D-Star reflector 058B by the NWS Mobile, AL Skywarn group – Rural Radio Preparedness Organization (web | facebook). We’re happy to hear another Skywarn group coming back up to speed.
There were a few questions after the event from Birmingham operators/spotters. After discussing with RRPA, we feel we have a good plan for directing spotter report traffic to the appropriate NWS station, ahead of the upcoming severe weather event Thursday 4/18/2019 Afternoon.
If you’re a Skywarn spotter or NWS Station Operator, check out the article here on how K4NWS would operate when sharing digital:
Operating Digital with Multiple Served Agencies
(Note: Document is subject to change, based on feedback from our partner NWS offices, Skywarn groups, storm spotters, reflector users, and K4NWS members. Feel free to direct comments to the email provided in the article!)
We appreciate the work that our other regional and county Skywarn groups, such as RRPA and NALSW (North Alabama Skywarn). Thank you all for your continued partnership as we all work toward the mission of the National Weather Service: Protect life and property.
Good evening!
Here we have our nominating committee report:
No contacts/nominations received during April for nomination.
Remember, nominations can also come from the floor of the May 2019 meeting, where the vote to elect officers will occur. We would love to see ALERT’s Supporting/Operational members there to offer their vote.
During the April 2019 meeting, the following nominations were voiced for the 2019-2020 year:
- President: Johnnie Knobloch, KJ4OPX
- Vice President: Peter Shaw, KX4LB
- Secretary: Justin Glass, N0ZO
- Treasurer: Bill Rodgers, K4FSO
- NWS Liaison: Russell Thomas, KV4S
“Wait, what, where is Casey going?”
I asked to step aside as president for a year. Nothing bad happened. There are some big-ticket items that I want to focus on.
Items which have my attention for 2019-2020:
1. Training updates – hold more regular NWS station trainings, provide updates to the station manual/quick reference ops guides. Current guides are quite old! We even discontinued an old 20 year policy this year.
2. Email and web servers – visual redesign and better organize call-out/newsletter contacts. Flash player isn’t as popular as it once was, so our website needs a fresh new look, optimized for both desktop and mobile web.
3. Enhance our knowledge of the reaches of Central AL repeaters so that we can cover most if not all of Central AL’s outer fringe areas. We want to cover all 39 counties, in some shape or fashion.
4. Continue reaching out to other clubs, offering ALERT/K4NWS support to them during severe weather, including spreading news about ALERT on Digital.
With ALL of this said, if you’re interested in being an ALERT NWS Operator, please reach out to us on our Facebook page: facebook.com/K4NWS, or to my personal email (or any of our officers).
Not a licensed amateur radio operator/want a failsafe way to communicate when internet/cell networks fail? We can help with that too!
I’m looking forward to a prosperous 2019-2020 year, and pray for low wind shear values!
Best Regards,
Casey Benefield, NZ2O
Email: my callsign (next to my name above) @ALERT-Alabama.org
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
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