A 45-year-old hiker who was reported missing after he texted a friend that he was lost in Angeles National Forest has been found. VC ARES member and satellite mapping enthusiast Ben Kuo-AI6YR, working from a cell phone photograph, helped authorities pinpoint the hiker’s location. View this interesting Twitter thread in which Ben explains how he was able to geolocate the hiker using only the general area and the grainy photograph on the left. Ben’s efforts resulted in nationwide attention from the New York Times to Good Morning America.
Screen shot of Ben-AI6YR being interviewed by Channel 7, KABC TV, Los Angeles.
Ventura County moved to the State’s Orange Tier effective Wednesday, April 7 at 12:01 am. The California Department of Public Health announced that the County has met the State’s metrics to move forward.
“This progress, thanks to the hard work of our community members, means that our restaurants, retailers, gyms and other businesses can open to more customers which will help keep doors open, grow jobs in industries that were hit hard during the height of the pandemic and get us moving forward on the recovery path,” said County Executive Officer Michael Powers. “This is the time to keep it local in supporting our businesses.”
ARES LAX NW District, LA EmComm group and WaveTalkers are running another round of their Winlink Basics for EmComm course every Friday and Sunday at 2pm PST for the next few weeks. The Friday and Sunday sessions are repeats of the same material so feel free to join either session live, link below, or catch the recordings on WaveTalkers. http://wavetalkers.com
Session 2: Getting on The Air With Winlink Over Telnet, starts today at 2pm PST and will be repeated live on Sunday at 2pm PST. All course sessions are being live streamed at my WaveTalkers site: http://wavetalkers.com and links to the Live Zoom sessions, previous course sessions, and show notes are available by joining the class.
The course being conducted live via Zoom and all Zoom sessions are limited to 100 participants.
Ventura County moved to the State’s Red Tier beginning 12:01 am Wednesday, March 17, 2021. “This is great news for our community and an opportunity to work together to support our local businesses as we move forward in reopening our economy,” said County Executive Officer, Michael Powers. In alignment with the state’s reopening framework, masking, distancing, and infection control practices remain in place.
Below is the information about our virtual ACS-ARES meeting on March 1, 2021. Please note that it starts at 7:00 P.M. (1900 PDT) rather than our traditional 7:30.
The meeting is open to all. Members, non-members, and the curious. Anyone interested in what we do is encouraged to attend. Feel free to pass on this information to others you believe might be interested. This is a chance to put a face to the people you may only know as a voice on the radio while remaining safely at home. We look forward to hearing about your unique ham experience during this difficult time.
We have a new ACS-ARES go kit. It should be a very useful addition to our inventory. It was purchased with funds from the VCSO OES. Their support is greatly appreciated. It will operate from 3.5MHz to 440 MHz. The Kenwood radio has a built in GPS and TNC for packet. The Yaesu has a built in sound card for VARA and other digital modes.
Primary use will be Winlink, but can be deployed as needed. In addition to what you see, there is a built-in 50 Amp Hour Bioenno Power Lithium Iron Phosphate battery and a West Mountain Radio PowerGate. If we ever have meetings in person again, I will bring it along.
Below is the information about our virtual ACS-ARES meeting for January 04, 2021. Please note that it starts at 7:00 P.M. (1900 PDT) rather than our traditional 7:30.
The meeting is open to all. Members, non-members, and the curious. Anyone interested in what we do is encouraged to attend. Feel free to pass on this information to others you believe might be interested. This is a chance to put a face to the people you may only know as a voice on the radio while remaining safely at home. We look forward to hearing about your unique Ham experience during this difficult time.
The State of California’s Stay Home Order will go into effect on Sunday, December 6 at 11:59 pm in Ventura County and in all counties in Southern California, after the Southern California Region’s hospital ICU capacity dropped below 15%. The order closes many businesses and activities and urges people to stay at home whenever possible. The California Department of Public Health reported on Friday evening that Southern California’s ICU capacity dropped to 13.1%, triggering the Stay Home Order. The order requires bars, wineries, nail salons, hair salons and barbershops, and other personal care services to close. Private gatherings of any size are prohibited. Restaurants can stay open for takeout and delivery, but they have to shut down both indoor and outdoor dining.
Due to increasing case rates, Ventura County will move back to the more restrictive COVID-19 Tier 1 Purple. “Community members have taken action. Our average number of tests per day per 100,000 population was in the 200s and has increased to 400 this past week. This hard work from the community allowed for the State to provide the County with an adjustment factor downward. However, because our case rate was at 12 the week ending November 7th, even with the large adjustment factor, we were not able to get under the required metric of 7 or less,” said Mike Powers, County Executive Officer. “Testing is still very important for future case rate adjustments, but also for the Public Health team’s timely and effective contact investigation and tracing efforts. We are encouraging all community members to get tested. Testing is available 7 days a week at sites throughout our County.”
