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ARRL at 100: A Century of Ham Radio

Sussex County ARES is comprised of FCC licensed operators who volunteer their time providing emergency communications to Sussex County, Delaware, when needed. Sussex County ARES provides back up emergency communications to several served agencies in Sussex County.

 

Sussex County ARES staff consists of the Emergency Coordinator (EC), Assistant Emergency Coordinators (AEC’s), Skywarn Coordinator and any specifically designated operator(s) which will provide liaison services for the ARES group. The ARES organization is not subdivided into local municipalities to allow maximum flexibility in response. It is also NOT divided along “club boundaries” for the same reason.

 

Sussex County ARES holds regularly scheduled net sessions. The purpose of the net is to provide training, test emergency center radio equipment and to provide information about ARES activities in and around Sussex County.

 

The Sussex ARES Net is held on first Wednesdays of the month at 7:00 p.m. local time, on the ARES Primary Repeater 147.090 MHz (PL 156.7). Additional area NETS can be found on the NETS page. The normally held net on the third Wednesday has been replaced with an Online Training Zoom as noted below.

Sussex County ARES will be an exhibitor at the 2025 Lewes Maritime Day - Saturday, May 17, 2025

Sussex County ARES will be an exhibitor at the 2025 Lewes Maritime Day on Saturday, 17, 2025. This event is one of Lewes' most popular events and will be held at the Lewes Canalfront Park, 219 Pilottown Road, Lewes, 19958.  This celebration will cover the park and the Lightship Overfalls. The hours will be from 11am to 3pm. Sussex ARES will have a booth to answer questions, handout literature, and a radio station running HF and VHF/UHF to have a few demos. If you are interested in coming out to help run the booth send Steven, KC3DSO an email. 

 

Sussex County ARES 2m Training Net Tonight! - Wednesday, May 7, 2025 at 7pm.

Sussex ARES will have our regularly scheduled 2m Training Net tonight on the SARA 146.090+, PL 156.7 Repeater in Millsboro. Wayne, N3UFG, will be the Net Control Station (NCS). We will continue with training out of the ARRL ARES Field Resource Manaual and other brief topics.

 

Sussex County ARES Zoom Training - Wednesday, May 21, 2025

Sussex ARES will have our next Zoom Training Session on Wednesday, May 21, 2025 with the Zoom starting at 6:30pm. We will be covering three topics. A quick review of the 2025 Ocean to Bay Bike Tour, Crew Resourcement Managment (managing team members when deployed), and an introduction to the Cross Band Repeat function of many radios. Zoom link is: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87376503678?pwd=346nMljaRnsUJkwIJ9H1hLEJz23CqB.1 Any questions send Steven, KC3DSO, an email. 

 

Sussex County ARES Third Quarter Hospital Drill for 2025 Announced - July 12, 2025

Sussex County ARES has announced the 3rd QTR hospital drill for 2025. This county wide drill will be held on Saturday, July 12, 2025 from 0830-1300 hours. As in our April drill, this drill will have a limited drill plan and will leverage the past objectives for the past year. Almost 100% of the drlil will be RF driven focusing on Peer to Peer (P2P) operations, message handling via WinLink Express, etc. The Sussex ARES July 9, 2025 hybrid meeting will cover the drill basic objectives and operation. This drill is another "No Plan Drill" with a very limited plan being released. If you are interested in participating; whether from your home or a hospital, contact the Sussex County EC.

 

Zoom link for the Wednesday, July 9, 2025  Pre-drill discussion at 6:30.

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81648023383?pwd=hBlCDv1bquVUZ43XeMRRaqYc49mhr8.1

 

Post Drill AAR Zoom link scheduled for Wednesday, July 16, 2025 at 6:30 during our next regularly scheduled training zoom:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83147487348?pwd=Dzzb7uSGNyYxf1mROwaaMm2oR1xDvb.1

 

 

Sussex County ARES Hybrid Meeting - June 11, 2025  

Sussex County ARES will be holding our next hybrid meeting on Wednesday, June 11, 2025 at 6:30 PM at Sussex Tech High School in Georgetown. This hybrid meeting we will be cover several training topics. We will be completing our discussion on Crew Resource Management, In's and Outs of "Cross Band Repeater" which is built into most modern radios, and open forum to address any questions. Contact the Sussex ARES EC with questions about the meeting.

 

Zoom Link for the June 11, 2025 Hybrid Meeting:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88433577613?pwd=L5EPOAqXEuOFewPtvsSKVYByQiWRQq.1

 

Sussex County ARES Changes Net and Online Zoom Training Dates for 2025 - New NCS and Events Calendar Posted

Sussex County ARES has changed one 2m net night per month to hold a online Zoom training meeting. In Person meetings will continue to be hybrid (both in person and online via Zoom) and will be held on the second Wednesday of even months of the year. The normal 2m Training Net that occurs on the third Wednesday of each month will be replaced with an online traing Zoom. The Zoom meetings will be posted here with links a few days before each Zoom. A new 2025 Net Control Schedule and Events Calendar has been posted. Visit the Forms & Docs Page for details.

 

Sussex County ARES Guest Speaker for September 17, 2025 Training Zoom - Dual Band Antennas presented by Dr. Ed Fong

Sussex County ARES will have a guest speaker for the September 17 Training Zoom; Dr. Ed Fong (WB6IQN).  As many of you know, he is the inventor of the DBJ-1 and DBJ-2 antenna that was featured in the February 2003 and March 2007 QST.    His most recent antenna was the TBJ-1 – a triband base antenna that was published in March 2017 QST.  The DBJ-1 is a highly effective dual band VHF/UHF base station antenna and the DBJ-2 is the portable roll up version.   The DBJ-2 won the QST Plaque of the Month Award. Both of these antennas are featured in the ARRL VHF antenna Handbook and also in the ARRL Antenna Classic Handbook.  There are over 40,000 of these antennas in use today.   About half are used by hams and the other half by government and commercial agencies. 

 

Ed will give a history on how these antennas were developed and the theory on how and why they work so well.  There is no “black magic” to antennas.  He will explain in a non-mathematical manner to convince you for overall performance and simplicity his approach is one of the most practical.

 

Ed's Bio:

 

Ed Fong was first licensed in 1968 as WN6IQN.  He later upgraded to Extra Class (when 20 WPM was required ) with his present call of WB6IQN.  He obtained the BSEE and MSEE degrees from the Univ. of California at Berkeley and his Ph.D. from the Univ. of San Francisco.  A Life Senior Member of the IEEE, he has 13 patents and over 50  published papers and books in the area of communications and integrated circuit design.  Presently, he is employed by the University of California,  Santa Cruz (previously with Berkeley from 1997-2010) as an instructor teaching graduate classes in Antenna Design,  RF design and high speed interface.  

 

Zoom Link for this September 17, 2025 Zoom:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84258258191?pwd=yJ96uarTGYMJ5974SsK1KxI3L76GkG.1

 

Delaware Section announces date of annual Simulated Emergency Test - October 4, 2025

The Delaware Section will again be participating in this years ARRL Simulated Emergency Test (SET). This years SET will be held on Saturday, October 4, 2025. The SET is a multifaceted nationwide readiness exercise to test your personal emergency operating skills and the readiness of your communications equipment and ascessories in a simulated emergency-like deployment. Section Staff will be working with all ARES groups and radio clubs in developing a statewide plan. The Delaware Section Emergency Coordinator (SEC), Wendy, W3NRN, will be the facilitator of this section wide event. This a great time to brush off your Go Kits, test those new antennas and laptop. Additional information will be provided by Wendy as the SET draws near. There will be a couple of statewide simplex drills in advance of the SET. Ensure you sign up with your local ARES Emergency Coordinator to get on the email list. The times of the SET will be posted when available.

 

Join the SussexCountyARES groups.io!

The current usage of an email list will end in the next few weeks. It's time to slim down that large email list and enable full two way messaging discussions (not available when sending emails via BCC), files, quicker contact, etc. Sussex County ARES will be moving to a groups.io forum in the next few weeks.  This new Sussex County ARES groups.io will be a subgroup of the sucessful ARRL Delaware Section groups.io forum. This will allow fast and easy mesage handling and a very familiar interface for all. Almost all of the clubs in Delaware use either groups.io, google groups, yahoo groups, etc. Even the Frankfurt Radio Club, American Red Cross EmComm Training group, Winlink Development Team, ARRL Section Managers Group, and many other use groups.io. Over the next few weeks both the email list and the Sussex County ARES forums will be used for messaging until the transition is complete so you won't loose a message. During these first weeks emails will be sent using the new SussexCountyARES@ARRLDelawareSection.groups.io email address to all on the current email list. If you want to remain a member simply accept the invite and your in. Somone not on the list that should get an invite? Tell them to visit The SussexCountyARES forum. An online zoom training session for navigating the groups.io forums can be setup if there is interest but it's pretty intuitive. The Members Manual can be found online and a Members Getting Started page is availalbe also. Any questions let me know.