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2026 Amateur Radio ShakeOut Preparedness Opportunity -- Mark your calendars for Wednesday, September 23, as the Radio Amateur Training Planning and Activities Committee (RATPAC) hosts "2026 Amateur Radio ShakeOut – Preparedness for Everyone!"
Earthquake safety and all-hazards preparedness start with practice. In this session, discover how ham radio operators around the globe can participate in the upcoming Great ShakeOut drill using Winlink and digital messaging. Presenters Oliver Dully, K6OLI, of LAXNORTHEAST ARES® and Bob Tykulsker, KM6SO, of the Emcomm Training Organization
will guide participants through the importance of all-hazards emergency readiness and provide a step-by-step walkthrough on how to complete and transmit:
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A Winlink USGS "Did You Feel It?" (DYFI) report
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The 2026 ShakeOut Preparedness Survey
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The 2026 ShakeOut Preparedness Quiz
Whether you operate online or completely offline, learn how your station can contribute vital data to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) while honing your EmComm skills. Save the Date: Wednesday, September 23, 2026. Details and Zoom Info: Visit RATPAC
or check the exercise page at LAXNORTHEAST ARES. --Oliver Dully, K6OLI, LAXNORTHEAST ARES
September is National Preparedness Month - Americans Stand Ready. When Americans take steps to prepare for disasters and keep their families safe, every neighborhood and community is more resilient.
Throughout National Preparedness Month this month, FEMA celebrates and encourages American resourcefulness and civic responsibility.
This year’s theme focuses on several distinct ideas that capture how Americans take pride in their ability to protect themselves and their families and work together to recover from disasters:
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Americans stand ready to uphold our patriotic duty: When individuals are prepared and self-reliant, we can bolster the work our brave first responders do to help people on their worst day.
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Americans stand ready to protect our family and friends: We know best how to keep our loved ones safe when things go wrong.
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Americans stand ready to help our communities: Taking a proactive approach to get your community ready contributes to the nation’s resilience.
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Life Imitates Art: LAXNORTHEAST Pairs Mentors with New Talent in 2026 HELL HEAT Exercise |
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The LAXNORTHEAST (northeast Los Angeles, California ARES) fifth Saturday emergency communications exercise on August 29, 2026, turned out to be a literal case of life imitating art.
Operators prepared for a scenario involving a severe regional heat dome and a cascading power grid blackout, only to find that real-world temperatures were nearly matching the script.
Rather than wilting under the pressure, our ham radio community used the heat wave to test both station setups and operator endurance in true-to-life conditions.
Teamwork and Field Mentoring
The standout of the morning was the teamwork displayed across our deployed field sites.
Four newly licensed hams jumped into active emergency communications for the first time, working hand in hand with experienced mentors at local medical centers.
Teams at Huntington Hospital, Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center, and USC Arcadia Hospital successfully managed active voice coordination on the primary LAX103 voice net while simultaneously keeping digital data channels flowing.
Balancing the Digital Load: VARA Chat vs. Winlink
Technologically, the exercise relied on a practical division of labor between our digital modes to keep the airwaves organized:
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VARA Chat acted as the primary workhorse for tactical hospital data on the 2-meter band. It reliably managed point-to-point file transfers and carried the bulk of our mission-critical medical forms.
These files were fed directly into a central dashboard managed by Jeff Liter, W6JCL, eliminating manual transcription errors.
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Winlink Express was used primarily for standard amateur radio administrative traffic, such as net check-ins and check-outs. It also served as the delivery tool for "emergency manager" injects—simulated problem-solving tasks sent down to field stations to keep operators on their toes throughout the morning.
Visualizing the Area with Pinpoint APRS
The updated Pinpoint APRS system gave Net Control and radio operators continuous situational awareness across the Los Angeles basin.
Using the tool's beacon object feature, operators mapped real-time survival resources, placing local designated cooling centers and generator-powered community hubs directly onto the live map.
Once the operational phases concluded, operators demonstrated excellent station discipline by cleanly removing their objects from the map to keep the layout organized and clutter-free.
Traffic Analysis by the Numbers
Our digital logs from the four-hour operational window highlight a steady, realistic volume of traffic handled by the team:
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Total Messages Processed: 87 logged messages.
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Winlink Gateway Volume: 62 messages.
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VARA Chat Volume: 25 messages.
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Dashboard Integration: 48 unique structured JSON forms parsed seamlessly into the central database.
The top three form types transmitted by operators during the exercise were:
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LA County HAvBED Reports (16 messages) – Tracking emergency department capacity, bed availability, and generator load statuses.
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ICS 213 General Messages (14 messages) – Relaying hyper-local weather observations and neighborhood welfare surveys.
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HICS-213 Forms (5 messages) – Routing urgent resource requests for chilled saline, cooling blankets, and ice baths to regional resource caches.
A Word of Thanks
An exercise like this succeeds because of strong community relationships.
We extend our sincere thanks to our hospital partners—Huntington Hospital, Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center, and USC Arcadia Hospital—for opening their doors and collaborating with our teams and to the Disaster Amateur Radio Network (DARN) Repeater team. Finally, congratulations to all participating radio operators who looked out for one another's safety, stuck to the hydration rules, and gave our newest hams a fantastic introduction to emergency operations.
--Oliver Dully, K6OLI, LAXNORTHEAST (ARRL Los Angeles Section, California) ARES
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Notable Events on the Timeline of Amateur Radio Disaster Communications |
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1906 - Radio amateur Barney Osborne, later W6US, provides emergency traffic handling during the San Francisco Earthquake and fire, according to family lore.
1913 - Hams provided emergency communications during Midwest storms and floods with spark-gap transmitters and crystal receiver sets, as vacuum tubes wouldn't emerge until after World War I.
1916 - A national traffic relay system was organized to provide relay of messages cross-country, and 9XE in Illinois originated a message that was received in California in 55 minutes and on the East Coast an hour after that.
1920s - A motor provided emergency power to the plates of newly invented vacuum tubes in a station of an "RM" - a "Radio Man" - during a Mississippi flood.
1925 - Amateur radio provided the only communications (5 watts CW) during the failed rescue attempt of caver Floyd Collins.
1926 - The cover of the May issue of QST featured a drawing of a railroad engineer holding an ARRL radiogram with the caption reading "Amateurs Give Emergency Service for Railroads When Wires Are Down."
1933 - Radio amateurs at W6BYF provided disaster communications for the Long Beach, California earthquake.
Although his house was demolished, famous ham Don Wallace, W6AM, operated a portable station through his surviving extensive antenna farm with the help of the Navy in supporting the relief effort.
1935 - Predecessors to ARES established.
ARRL had a vision of them in 1917.
1936 - The catastrophic floods of the northeast (from Maine through to the Ohio River valley) wrecked the ARRL HQ station in Hartford (along the Connecticut River), with amateur radio again providing support.
Famous VHF pioneer and ARRL HQ staffer Ed Tilton, W1HDQ, and his wife provided communications.
1937 - Dr. Joseph Vancheri, W8BWH, was a key relief communications asset, arranging for aid to refugees from the Johnstown floods.
Late 1930s - Commercial emergency amateur radio gear appeared and was advertised: an example was the battery-powered 50-S transmitter from Harvey Radio Laboratories of Brookline, Massachusetts.
1948 - Flooding of Vanport, Washington, after the rupture of a Columbia River dike prompted an Amateur Radio Emergency Corps (AREC) response under EC W7DIS, with amateurs using handheld radios (walkie-talkies).
1957 - RACES was involved in providing communications support during the Malibu-Topanga Canyon (California) fires. Deputy Chief Radio Officer W6QJW operated under RACES tactical call sign CPT19 and controlled a net on 3995 kHz. The Gonset Communicator was an iconic Cold War/Civil Defense portable transceiver.
1964 - The Great Alaskan Earthquake hit Anchorage, drawing a massive amateur response in handling emergency and health-and-welfare traffic. It was the most powerful earthquake in North American history, and the second most powerful in recorded history of the world.
There was sweeping destruction in the city and the region.
George Hart, W1NJM, wrote about the amateur response in the July 1964 issue of QST: 314 Alaskan amateurs supported the disaster relief effort, with 1200 more from around the rest of the country actively supporting them.
"KL7DVY reports he operated 20 hours on two meters, relaying messages from the Alaska Native Hospital to c.d. headquarters in Anchorage." See the August 2014 issue of QST, Public Service column, "Alaska Shield 2014."
1979 - Hurricanes Frederic and David wrought destruction on the Gulf Coast and East Coast, respectively.
Amateur radio support of relief efforts was in evidence in both cases.
That brings us up to the modern era and the emergence of the contemporary emergency management model.
In the eighties, Hurricanes Gilbert (1988) and Hugo (1989), and the spate of four hurricanes in 2004 affected Florida extensively.
Hurricane Andrew (1992) also wreaked incredible devastation in that state.
Hurricanes Katrina (2005) and Sandy (2012) were game-changers for emergency management thinking and policy.
Amateur radio was extensively involved in all cases.
And, of course, amateur radio was involved in the colossal relief effort in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
[Much of the above was culled from a presentation given at the ARRL Pacificon convention in San Ramon, California, 2010, by Bart Lee, K6VK, ARRL State Government Liaison, and ARRL Volunteer Counsel; Historian and Archivist, California Historical Radio Society, and lecturer, Antique Wireless Society.
For more reading, check out the chapter on “Emergencies” in Clinton B. DeSoto’s classic 1936 tome Two Hundred Meters and Down—The Story of Amateur Radio.
--K1CE]
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Table of Contents of the first edition (1936) of "Two Hundred Meters and Down—The Story of Amateur Radio." See especially the chapter simply titled “Emergencies.” If you’re lucky, you can find a first edition on eBay, or Amazon Prime, like I did.—K1CE | | | |
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Amateur Radio Bridges the Gap During Historic Missouri Flash Flooding |
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In the early morning hours of July 10, 2026, a 1-in-1,000-year rainfall event hit southeastern Missouri.
Slow-moving storms stalled over Reynolds and Iron Counties and dropped 6 to 12+ inches of rain in under 24 hours. The result was a Flash Flood Emergency across the region, with the Black River rising to a record 28.7 feet.
Communities such as Lesterville were cut off as roads collapsed.
Statewide, crews conducted more than 350 emergency water rescues, with roughly 90 of those in Reynolds County alone.
The Missouri National Guard flew 202 campers and counselors out of Camp Taum Sauk using eight UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, and responders pulled a group of campers off of a collapsing roof at the Bearcat Getaway campground.
Two rescue boats capsized during the response; the crews aboard were recovered safely by other responders.
With roads gone and agencies stretched thin, amateur radio stepped into that gap.
96 Hours in the Field
Washington County ARES stood up a severe weather net the night before the rain hit, tracking rainfall totals and early flooding reports, and passing that ground-truth data straight to the National Weather Service.
Once the flash flooding started, it turned into a full field deployment.
We worked out of the tailgates of our vehicles for 96 hours straight, through a summer heat wave, covering four operational functions:
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Day-One comms and road clearing: We had radio coverage on the ground as soon as the flooding hit and worked directly with local chainsaw crews to clear debris and downed trees so emergency vehicles could get through.
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Reunification tracking: We stood up a communication node to track and log rescued campers, coordinating with the Cajun Navy and TSA to get kids fed and back with their families.
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Liaison work for The Salvation Army, AERS, and Red Cross: We handled comms so food, water, and relief supplies got where they needed to go, alongside coordination for the other agencies on scene.
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Continuous situational awareness: We ran a net around the clock compiling damage reports, tracking the Black River's rise, and relaying safety and logistics info to operators still in the field.
What We Learned
Tailgate operating proved amateur radio can deploy anywhere on short notice, but 96 hours in an active disaster zone exposed our limits.
Sensitive gear doesn't hold up well in direct sun and extreme heat, and neither do volunteer operators after four straight days.
We're now pursuing grants and community sponsorships for a dedicated mobile
communications trailer — climate-controlled, multi-position, and built to keep both the electronics and the operators running when the next one hits.
--Brandon J. Caldwell, KFØHOG, Farmington, Missouri
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Comms for the RBC Race for the Kids in Minnesota |
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One of the key themes from FEMA is interoperability.
I somehow missed the memos on the value in emergencies or events deployment of multiple incompatible digital voice modes and internet linking.
We meet with the race officials, get our mission and assignments and round up or bring in FM repeaters.
The RBC Race for the Kids
was a new race to us, a charity 10-mile, 5- and 3-mile and kids run tucked under some bridges on a pretty riverfront trail.
We were under the river bluffs from downtown Minneapolis and across from the University of Minnesota.
The rest stops were at parks new to me, certainly.
I got there a bit behind schedule--a bad idea as several of us had to drive around/move several “road closed” barricades. Despite “official vehicle” window passes, this can cause problems.
A few years back, there was a big push to use DMR for events.
We signed out some repeaters and on race day, we had five operators and five different brands and models of radios.
The code plugs were incompatible.
We needed to use two local repeaters, a portable trailer-mounted repeater and possibly simplex.
At the time there was a cBridge and Brandmeister battle going on and the guy in charge of the area code plugs moved away.
One proposed solution was for one of the hams to issue cache radios that were correctly programmed.
Hams like to use their ham equipment if possible.
To top it off, we had channel congestion from unrelated Internet linked nets going on during the event.
We returned the DMR gear and are back to FM.
Even basic tone programming can be a problem – but we sorted it out.
Rule #1 in events – we never, ever have “radio problems.” We use a now familiar cadence: A few pre meetings, street addresses for assignments, ICS 205 (the comms available worksheet) and ICS 206 (medical) forms. Probably an incident briefing form would be good: We want to know who the Incident Command is, and what law enforcement partners we are with.
Our repeater (an old Yaesu DR-1XFR) worked like a champ.
We were right under it, and had the Fusion and linking shut off.
It was still listed in one of the directories (long story) as “9600 packet” so nobody bothered us.
It was our gear, so we did not need to beg from any trustees.
Our team of seven enjoyed the cool weather, as did the more than 1000 runners. Jennifer Zielinski, KFØMPK, was NCS, as we had just enough stations/operators for the net.
I used a new-to-me $24 Baofeng UV-9RPLUS, which suffers from RF RX overload but usually not in a park.
I was assigned with Peter Corbett, KD8GBL. I also had a used Yaesu FT-70D which was donated and I handed it over to Peter who did not own a Fusion radio.
It had an oddball DC jack but that was enabled with an $8 Amazon adapter.
Our station had a first aid kit, but no assigned medic; I brought my Park Patrol pack.
We accidently forgot to put up the “Medical” signs once we discovered we were it, as we prefer to be stealthy backup medical only.
I might change my mind if I spend the $1000 on Emergency Medical Responder school.
After a pleasant morning we held a hotwash: the ICS 205 form got out late but did the job.The amazing Minneapolis Park Police event lead stopped by and we shook hands; he knew several of our crew already. We are onto the next race – the Rice Creek Half -- where we may need to trailer in some towers and repeater capacity. --Erik Westgard, NY9D, Assistant Section Emergency Coordinator for Events, ARRL Minnesota Section
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Letters: Veteran National Hurricane Center Station WX4NHC Operator WB4L, Silent Key |
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It is with great sadness that I inform the amateur community of the passing of one of our most dedicated WX4NHC operators, Alan Wolfe, WB4L. [WX4NHC is the amateur station that is situated next to the main forecasting room at the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami.]
Alan had been a WX4NHC operator for over 25 years; his wife Susie, WX2L, joined Alan about 22 years ago to create a great team. They both would come into NHC and operate WX4NHC during many hurricanes. When I could not find an operator for a shift, they were always ready and willing to jump in and operate.
Alan brought his great skills from years of DXing and public service. His warmth and humor always made me smile. Alan will be missed by all who knew him and all who worked beside him at WX4NHC during hurricanes. --Julio Ripoll, WD4R, Miami, Florida
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K1CE for a Final: Harold Kramer, WJ1B, SK |
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I was deeply saddened to learn that former ARRL Chief Operating Officer (COO) Harold Kramer, WJ1B, of Cheshire, Connecticut, passed away on Monday, August 31, 2026, at age 78. The ARRL ARES Letter, now in its twenty-first year of publication, was the brainchild of Harold. At the Orlando HamCation in 2005, we had lunch together at a picnic table and he asked me if I would serve as editor of a new newsletter for the ARES community—I quickly agreed.
But much more importantly, he was an excellent officer of the ARRL—and even more importantly, a truly nice guy with a great sense of humor and laugh. --Rick Palm, K1CE
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The Amateur Radio Emergency Service® (ARES) consists of licensed amateurs who have voluntarily registered their qualifications and equipment with their local ARES leadership, for communications duty in the public service when disaster strikes.
Every licensed amateur, regardless of membership in ARRL or any other local or national organization is eligible to apply for membership in ARES.
Training may be required or desired to participate fully in ARES.
Please inquire at the local level for specific information.
Because ARES is an amateur radio program, only licensed radio amateurs are eligible for membership.
The possession of emergency-powered equipment is desirable, but is not a requirement for membership.
How to Get Involved in ARES: Fill out the
ARES Registration form
and submit it to your local Emergency Coordinator.
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ARES® is a program of ARRL The National Association for Amateur Radio®. No other organization works harder than ARRL to promote and protect amateur radio! ARRL members enjoy many benefits and services including digital magazines, e-newsletters, online learning (learn.arrl.org), and technical support.
Membership also supports programs for radio clubs, on-air contests, Logbook of The World®, ARRL Field Day, and the all-volunteer ARRL Field Organization.
Join ARRL or renew today!
www.arrl.org/join
The ARES Letter is free of charge to ARRL members.
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The ARES Letter is published on the third Wednesday of each month. ARRL members may subscribe at no cost or unsubscribe by editing their Member Data Page at
www.arrl.org/opt-in-out.
Copyright © 2026 American Radio Relay League, Incorporated. Use and distribution of this publication, or any portion thereof, is permitted for non-commercial or educational purposes, with attribution. All other purposes require written permission.
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