| WARC |
| WESTCUMB AMATEUR RADIO CLUB |
| Westmorland County, NB & Cumberland County, NS |
| EXERCISE HANDSHAKE |
The VE1WRC web server has a high speed line provided by http://www.cumberlandcounty.ns.ca.
"Exercise Handshake" was held on the evening of Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 from the Cumberland County EMO room in Amhesrt, NS. Photos taken that evening appearing here were submitted by Bob, VE1EDP and Brad ,VE1ZX. Here is the initial info on this exercise involving Cumberland EMO, Fredericton EMO, Charlottetown EMO and Colchester EMO: EXERCISE HANDSHAKE 2 December 2008 Time 19:00hrs The purpose of this exercise is to test our communication equipment and operator capabilities. Participants in this exercise will be: 1.EOC Cumberland Regional EMO 2.EOC Colchester Regional EOC 3.EOC Charlottetown PEI 4.EOC Fredericton NB 5.NS Public Safety and Field Communications, Scott Hawks 6.Cumberland Regional Health Care The equipment to be tested will be as follows: 1.Provincial TMR. Monitor Alert then request Mutual Talk Group from Shubie. Once Mutual Aid Talk Group is issued, all participants will check in with the controlling agency. That agency will be the Cumberland EOC. Once this is done we will do a radio check then request that all on the Talk Group go back to ALERT. EOC Cumberland will then ask Shubie to take down the talk group. NS participants will monitor ALERT. NB and PE participants will go back to EOC NB. This will conclude the TMR testing. 2.AMATEUR RADIO VHF. EOC Cumberland will contact EOC Colchester via VE1BHS repeater, (145.350-). They will exchange signal reports. EOC Colchester will contact EOC Charlottetown via VE1BHS (145.350-). Cumberland Regional Health will contact EOC Cumberland and EOC Colchester for exchange of signal reports. 3.AMATEUR RADIO IRLP. EOC Charlottetown and EOC Colchester will contact EOC Cumberland via IRLP code 2060. Signal reports will be exchanged. 4.AMATEUR RADIO ECHO LINK. EOC Cumberland and EOC Colchester will establish communications and exchange signal reports. 5.AMATEUR RADIO HF. EOC Cumberland will establish communications with EOC Colchester on 3.755 mhz after the Maritime Net. Signal reports will be exchanged. If things are working good, CW contacts will be established on 3.550 mhz. 6.SATELLITE PHONE At 20:20 hrs, EOC Colchester will call EOC Cumberland. At 20:30 hrs, Scott HAWKS will call EOC Cumberland and EOC Colchester (Numbers to be published later). 7.AMATEUR RADIO PACKET. Packets will be sent back and forth between EOC Cumberland and EOC Colchester during the evening to make comments on the progress of the exercise. Should Scott Hawks, EOCs in NB or PE have HF, Packet, ECHO LINK or IRLP capabilities, please let me know and we can write them into this exercise. Please be advised that this is only a DRAFT and we would appreciate your input to make this exercise as interesting and fun as possible. Thanks. Jim Hannon VE1AFH EMC Cumberland Regional EMO (Photo credit to VE1EDP, Bob and VE1ZX, Brad) |
| Exercise "Handshake" - 27th October 2009 |
| The monthly Exercise "Handshake" was held at the Cumberland County EMO Centre in Amherst, NS at the E.D. Fullerton Building on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009. There were about 10 operators participating in the EMO Room. Brad, VE1ZX sent me these photos of the evening's exercise. I checked in from home on both VHF and HF. Peter, VE1SM later said the exercise went very well. ~VE1CHI, Jim C. Webguy |
| Exercise "Handshake" - 24th November 2009 |
The stats are in for the November 2009 edition of Exercise Handshake: We had 12 operators at the Westcumb ARC radio room, 31 amateurs took part in the exercise, 8 repeaters were used and 38 messages were passed during the exercise. This has been the twelfth consecutive Exercise Handshake as we started in December of last year. We have added RTTY and SlowScan Television to the radio room and hopefully will have these modes running soon. TMR contacts were made with Scott Hawkes VE1SLH Communications Equipment Trainer, Al Cyples VE1CYP Communications and Equipment Support, both for the province of Nova Scotia, Halifax Regional Municipality EMO, EMC Annapolis, Advocate Fire, Kings County EMO, Colchester EMO and Valley Search & Rescue. VHF IRLP contacts included VE9TCA, VE1HRE, VE1LD, VE1PJW, VE1ARE, VE9JHQ, VE1AO, WA1UKD, VE9ND and VA1SBT. Echolick contacts were VE1IZ, VE9TCA, VE9NHS, WA1UKD and VE9ND. Packet contact was made between Cumberland EMO and Moncton Station VE9BUF. Satilite Phone contacts were with Kings, Annapolis and Cumberland Counties. HF contacts were with VE9EMO in Fredericton and VO1RYL in Newfoundland. Contacts were also made with Red N1XLY / VE1XLY from Southbury Connecticut using WA1UKD EMC, Rendly Godwin VO1RYL from Heart's Desire Newfoundland and with Jon Dueck using VE9JHQ at RCMP J Division, Fredericton NB. Thanks very much to all who took part and hope to hear you again next month. ~Jim Langille VE1JBL |
| Exercise "Handshake" - 29th December 2009 |
The monthly Exercise "Handshake" was held at the Cumberland County EMO Centre in Amherst, NS at the E.D. Fullerton Building on Tuesday, December 29th, 2009. There were at least eight participants there but I have no statistical report this time. If anyone has the stats, please email me and I will include them here. Bob Perry, VE1EDP took the photos here during the exercise. Thanks Bob. |
| Exercise "Handshake" - 26th January 2010 |
| Here are 7 photos from Exercise 'Handshake' taken on 26th Jan 2010 at the E.D. Fullerton Comm. Room in Amherst, NS. The first photo (upper left) shows Jon Gordon, VE1JSG handling the TMR duties with assistance from Mike Masters, VE1XDT. Lloyd Smith, VA1MAB is in background on the left side on Packet radio. Jim Langille, VE1JBL is on the right operating Echolink. The next photo(upper right) shows Lloyd and Jim at their operating stations. The third photo (second left) shows Brad Ross, VE1ZX left, on VHF and the IRLP and Ron Bickle, VE1BIC right, on HF. The fourth photo (second right) shows Bob Perry, VE1EDP presenting Brad Ross, VE1ZX with an EMO jacket for working TMR and other communications equipment during 10 different 'Handshake' exercises. The fifth photo (third left) shows Mike Masters, VE1XDT receiving his jacket for working 10 Handshake exercises. The sixth photo (third right) shows Bob, VE1EDP getting ready to present an EMO jacket to the next deserving operator. Who will it be? Well, it happened to be none other than Jim Hannon, VE1AFH shown below in the seventh photo receiving this jacket from Bob Perry. Congratulations guys! (Thanks to Bob Perry, VE1EDP for the photos and the writeup.) |
Hi Jim, Here is the report from the January 2010 Exercise Handshake: The stats are in for the January 2010 edition of Exercise Handshake. There were 7 amateurs taking part from VE1EMX Cumberland EMO. Bob Perry VE1EDP Communications Officer for Cumberland on Sat Phone, Jon Gordon VE1JSG and Mike Masters VE1XDT on TMR, Brad Ross VE1ZX on VHF, Ron Bickle VE1BIC on HF and Lloyd Smith VA1MAB on Packet and Echolink. There were a total of 50 contacts during the evening, 33 amateurs taking part and 8 repeaters in use. Contacts covered Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Connecticut. Agencies and clubs taking part were: EMO Cumberland, Colchester EMO, Kings County EMO, HRM EMO, EMO Nova Scotia Dominic Fewer, Oxford DOT, Red Cross Sydney, Advocate Fire, Tri-County ARC Moncton, Fredericton EMO, Great Village Fire and WA1UKD Southbury CT. Some of the amateurs taking part were: Doug Merser VO1DTM, Red Holmes N1XLY / VE1XLY, Oscer Fuller NO1F, Jim Hannon VE1AFH, Al Thurber VE1AKT, Sterling Carpenter VE9SK, Rick MacMillan VE9MTB, John Clarke VE1AVK, Yvon Hachey VE1VON, Derek Coolen VE1WRG, Leo Slade VE1LS, John Brady VE1WZ and Bruce Harvey VE1II. I would like to thank all of you who have taken part in these exercises over the past year and remember, if it wasn't for you, these exercises would not take place. We are in this together. I hope these exercises are helping amateurs and non amateurs to become comfortable with using radios with may some day be used in an emergency to help your local community. I would also like to give special thanks to Shubie Radio and all those who take part for letting us use this great radio system. Jim Langille VE1JBL |
| Exercise "Handshake" - 23rd February 2010 |
The photos here show Ron Bickle on Echolink, Lloyd Smith on Packet, Brain MacDonald on VHF Amherst Repeater and Jim Langille standing amd overseeing. Brad Ross is standing in back of Jim Langille, assisting Randy Elliott on VHF. Jon Gordon is working with Mike Masters on TMR and Peter Hebb is on HF. A special guest, Scott Hawkes VE1SLH, of the Nova Scotia Public Safety Field Communications Office, was also in attendance as an observer and also got to participate when he setup an external antenna for the Satellite phone with Jim Hannon. The external antenna can be seen setting on top of the wall outside the Cumberland County building and leads back inside to the satellite phone located in the inside lobby area. Missing from photos is Bob Perry taking the pictures. Almost forgot about the photo of the white board showing the contacts and equipment being used by each. This board was made from a rolled down projector screen. (Photos and Story by Bob Perry) ~73 Bob, VE1EDP |
| The stats are in for the February 2010 edition of Exercise Handshake There were 12 amateurs taking part at VE1EMX Cumberland EMO. Bob Perry VE1EDP Communications Officer for Cumberland, Jim Hannon VE1AFH EMO Coordinator for Cumberland County on Sat Phone, Jon Gordon VE1JSG & Mike Masters VE1XDT on TMR, Randy Elliott VE1ADV & Brad Ross VE1ZX on VHF, Ron Bickle VE1BIC on Echolink, Peter Hebb VE1SM on HF and Lloyd Smith VA1MAB on Packet. Brian McDonald VE1BSD was working his first exercise and filled in when needed on VHF and Echolink. We also had a special guest, Scott Hawkes VE1SLH, Nova Scotia Public Safety Field Communications Officer. There were a total of 73 contacts during the evening, 39 amateurs taking part and 8 repeaters in use. Contacts covered Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Connecticut. Agencies and clubs taking part were: EMO Cumberland, Colchester EMO, Kings County EMO, HRM EMO, Red Cross Sydney, Tri-County ARC Moncton NB, Fredericton ARC, Great Village Fire, EMC Victoria County, Yarmouth EOC, Annapolis EMC, Transportation Cobiquid Pass, Kings County EMO, EMO Lumsden Pond NS, RCMP J Division Fredericton NB and WA1UKD Southbury CT. Some of the amateurs taking part were: Al Cyples VE1CYP, Doug Merser VO1DTM, Vice-President Field Services for Radio Amateurs of Canada sending a formal message congratulating all amateurs taking part in these exercises, Red Holmes N1XLY / VE1XLY, Rick MacMillan VE9MTB, John Clarke VE1AVK, Yvon Hachey VE1VON, Derek Coolen VE1WRG, Leo Slade VE1LS, Bruce Grainger VE1BWG, Dave Vail VE1GM, Heath Stillman VE9NHS, John LeBlanc VE9BK, Bruce Harvey VE1II, Shane McDougall VE1SMC, Guy Campbell VE1ARE, Art Hamilton VE1ART, Brian DeAthe VE1RCF, Jon Dueck VE9JTD and Emile Pineau VE1ESP. Others taking part were Terry Canning, EMO Nova Scotia and Murray Mills, Assistant EMO Coordinator Cumberland County. We had five contacts using emergency backup power. Hopefully in the future we will have more checkins this way. These exercises are a great time to check out emergency power for your radios. I would like to thank all of you who took part in this exercise. It was the most active exercise since it began more than a year ago. If I left out anyone, please let me know and I will add you to the list. I hope these exercises are helping amateurs and non amateurs to become comfortable with using radios which may some day be used in an emergency to help your local community. I would also like to give special thanks to Shubie Radio for letting us use the provincial TMR radio system for these exercises. Jim Langille VE1JBL |
| Exercise "Handshake" - 29th June 2010 |
| Here are some photos from Exercise Handshake sent in by VE1JBL,Jim. Additional info regarding this exercise will be found on the Maritime Amateur website: www.maritimeamateur.ca . Two more club members are shown here receiving their jackets for their regular participation in this ongoing exercise: Randy Elliott, VE1ADV and Jon Gordon, VE1JSG. Congratulations guys! |
| L to R: Randy Elliott, VE1ADV receiving his jacket from Jim Hannon, VE1AFH |
| L to R: Jon Gordon, VE1JSG receiving his jacket from Jim Hannon, VE1AFH |
| Exercise "Handshake" - 25th January 2011 |
| Photos from this exercise were submitted by VE1EDP, Bob Perry. Thanks Bob. |
| L to R: VE1JBL, Jim is shown presenting an EMO jacket to VE1BIC, Ron for his participation in ten Exercise Handshakes. |