No Section-level activations at this time.

Official ARES Section activations are state-level activations authorized by the Section Emergency Coordinator, as requested by the Minnesota State Duty Officer, Minnesota Volunteer Agencies Active in Disaster (MNVOAD) or by local agencies.

Minnesota ARES personnel to test their HF capabilities during the Minnesota QSO Party

The Minnesota Wireless Association will be offering a special operating contest for Minnesota ARES personnel for the Minnesota QSO Party Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012. We hope that this will continue to grow year after year, incorporating more features to adequately test individual, county, district, and section capabilities to operate within the section, and throughout the nation.

Exact classes and awards are still being decided by the MWA, and more information will be forthcoming.

For more information, please visit the Minnesota QSO Party ARES website at:

http://www.w0aa.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=49&Itemid=36

Radio Amateurs not affected by Narrowbanding Requirements:

The FCC released a Public Notice on January 6, reminding land mobile licensees, frequency coordinators and equipment manufacturers that they have less than one year to transition to narrowband operations in the 150-174 and 421-512 MHz bands. While the latter frequency range includes amateur service allocations, radio amateurs are not affected by the narrowbanding requirement. Land mobile operation is permitted in parts of the 421-430 MHz band in the areas around Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo, and land mobile licensees in these areas are among those who will have to migrate to narrowband (12.5 kHz or narrower) technology by January 1, 2013. Amateur operation is not permitted along the Canadian border (north of Line A as defined in the FCC Rules) in the band 420-430 MHz.

Minnesota ARES Digital NET - Thursdays at 20:00hrs on 3.583.5Khz

The first Minnesota ARES Digital Net was started last night (12/15) on 3.583.5khz using FLDigi software. We had 8 checkin's from 5 states. That was a lot of fun! Our longest contacts was from Pittsburgh, PA and Lansing, MI.

Join us every Thursday night at 20:00hrs central time on 3583.5 kHz USB, center audio frequency 1000 Hz +/- QRM using Olivia 16/500.