Pioneering Amateur Television ARES Group Holds Annual Meeting

The Boulder County, Colorado, ARES (BCARES) group held its annual meeting on January 27, 2025, in the county Sheriff's office meeting room. Fifteen members were present, plus a representative from the Sheriff's department, along with three others from the Office of Disaster Management (ODM).

Chairman and Emergency Coordinator Allen Bishop, KØARK, introduced the meeting, talking about the major operations that BCARES has been involved with in the past, including the big flood of 2013 and the Marshall Fire of 2021. “We did not have any callouts in 2024, but that’s actually a good thing from a community perspective,” he said. “There were demos of our 70-centimeter ATV equipment with conventional camera and drone camera inputs and our portable 70-centimeter DATV repeater was on display as well.” A useful addition that was on display was a microwave HDMI extender. This can extend an HDMI connection over 10 miles.

Bishop talked about the training events that were held in 2024, including for ATV, Winlink, WebEOC, and a session on how to operate the BCARES station at the EOC. He also talked about the grant that BCARES received from the county to help improve operations. Bishop discussed future cross-band ATV repeaters that could expand ATV coverage throughout the county.

Bill Eberle, ABØMY, gave the treasurer’s report: The club’s balance at year-end was $33,460.75, the bulk from the large grant BCARES recently received from Boulder County. Doshia Kretke, KBØNAS, the group’s hospital liaison, discussed upcoming mass casualty exercises that could simulate large events caused by terrorism, accidents or natural disasters.

Peter Goldman, WB2DVS, talked about the microwave IP network project that has a goal of connecting several EOCs in the area using microwave links via the Rocky Mountain Ham microwave backbone network that stretches the length of Colorado along the Front Range. Each EOC would have a digital Voice over IP (VOIP) phone and a laptop to provide basic telephone and email connections between those EOCs.

Eric Richards, KBØYDN, of Loveland, talked about how his rural community near Pinewood Reservoir west of Carter Lake is working on emergency preparedness by connecting non-ham community members with hams using GMRS radios. Then, hams can connect to the local ARES group through ham radio for wider communications.

Bob Smith, NØZFV, urged hams to contact local congressmen to push for legislation that would require HOA exemptions for reasonable amateur radio antennas to allow hams to provide communication during disasters including “black sky events” in which all commercial communications infrastructure would be out of commission. – adapted from an article in the Boulder ATV Journal, February 7, 2025 issue, Jim Andrews, KH6HTV, editor