Volunteer registration for the 2012 Boston Marathon is now open! The Marathon will be held on Monday April 16th.

Radio operators are needed to provide safety communications and to assist the Red Cross. Assignments are available in Hopkinton, along the route, and in downtown Boston.

Each year several members of both Worcester Emergency Communications Team and the WPI Wireless Association get together to carpool from the WPI campus in Worcester to the finish line area at Copley Plaza in Boston to work with the finish line crew. If you are interested in joining in on this carpool, contact John N2YHK.

To volunteer, go to the Marathon Amateur Radio Communications website and follow the instructions to register for the radio team. Please do not sign up directly on the BAA's volunteer website, your information will be sent to the BAA from the Marathon Amateur Radio Communications website when you register there.

This summary is from ARRL WMA Section Emergency Coordinator and WECT Secretary John Ruggiero N2YHK regarding the June 1, 2011 response.

Hi All,

Just a quick note about the assistance that amateur radio provided during and after the recent series of tornadoes that affected the area from Westfield to Southbridge in the Western MA Section:

* SkyWarn was active and amateur radio operators assisted in gathering severe weather reports on the Mt. Tom, Paxton and other associated repeaters. Initial reports of a tornado striking Westfield were relayed to NWS via amateur radio and SkyWarn.

* Tom Doyle, N1MUV, DEC Hampden / Hampshire, and his team provided assistance to the Red Cross by staffing the Springfield Chapter and three shelters in Springfield, Monson and Brimfield.

* Tom and his team also provided assistance to several local EOCs, as well as support to RACES operations at the MEMA Regional HQ in Agawam.

* Charlie Dunlap, K1II, EC Hampden West, and his team provided assistance to Southwick and surrounding communities, as well as support to RACES operations at the MEMA Regional HQ in Agawam.

* Tim Mongeau, KB1LZF, EC Worcester, staffed the Worcester Emergency Communications Team / MEMA Region 4 Radio Room and provided assistance in gathering reports for SkyWarn.

* Amateur radio operators were present with NWS survey teams today.

* The ARRL has posted a news article about amateur radio's response on their website.

* At this time, amateur radio operations are winding down and no further requests for assistance are pending.

Thank you all for your assistance and continued support of WMA ARES!

John, N2YHK
WMA SEC

WTAG's Dave Russell, host of the station's Saturday Morning News program, interviewed Gil Hayes, WK1H in regards our team, our relationship with WEMD and MEMA, local and state amateur radio emcomms, and amateur radio in general. The interview aired on WTAG's AM 580 and FM 94.9 stations during the August 7, 2010 edition of the program at around 6:45 AM.

Dave Russell and WTAG have graciously provided us with a copy of the interview file on MP3, which can be downloaded here.

If you are affiliated with Worcester RACES or RACES in another town, both the federal and state governments have recently agreed upon some basic core requirements for RACES personnel in order to retain the RACES designation and certification. These requirements consist of taking two Incident Command Courses offered online by FEMA. The specific courses are IS-100.b and IS-700.a. The IS-100.a is basic Incident Command Structure. This is the management system that is to be used to manage any large scale incidents. IS-700.a is a NIMS Introduction. NIMS (National Incident Management System) is the federal implementation of the ICS system. Additionally, if you are likely to assume a supervisory role during an incident, IS-200.b (ICS for Single Resources and Initial Action Incidents) is required. Since any Net Control assignment is considered a supervisory role, it is highly recommended that all team members take this course as well because any member may be asked to take a NCS assignment at any time during an incident. IS-100.b is a prerequisite to taking IS-200.b. All three courses are free and only involve a few hours of your time. If classroom courses are preferred over online courses, email Worcester Emergency Management with your request. If enough people are interested (10+), we will be able to run a normal classroom session for any of these courses, again, free of charge. For more on this subject, see the Recommended Training page.