Date: February 2023
Amount: $4,000

The Pierce County Amateur Radio Communication Services (ARCS) strives to provide the most effective and efficient communication services possible to entities they serve. Their role is to support the material needs of the Amateur Radio Emergency Services (ARES) in Pierce County, Washington. In 2018, ARCS built 12 VHF/UHF go kits, which provide robust, local-area communications throughout the county.

This grant will be combined with funds from other sources to purchase the equipment needed to build several HF go-kits that will allow the club to communicate with the rest of the world in the event of an emergency.

Learn more at: https://piercecountyarcs.net.

Update

Pierce County is vulnerable to a variety of natural hazards, including wildfires, floods, landslides, earthquakes, and volcanic threats. ARES volunteers support emergency managers, community-based shelters, and non-governmental organisations during and after disasters by providing reliable emergency communications when conventional systems are disrupted or unavailable. The goal of this project was to enhance the resilience of Pierce County’s emergency communications network by equipping and training ARES volunteers with portable HF Go-Kits that can be rapidly deployed to support disaster response and health-and-welfare messaging during major emergencies.

The ARCS HF Go-Kits project was partly funded by ARDC which contributed $4,000 toward the total project cost of $16,000. The remaining funding was provided by three additional foundations. The ARCS HF Go-Kits project supported the development of three HF Go-Kits, with more than 20 amateur radio operators participating in the design, construction, testing, and evaluation of the equipment and antenna configurations. The resulting HF Go-Kits are fully self-contained, portable, and rapidly deployable HF communication stations capable of supporting both voice and digital communications. The HF Go-Kit is organised into six major components:

1. Radio Box – Contains an ICOM IC-7300 HF transceiver, antenna tuner, 30 Amp power supply, speaker, USB interfaces, and all necessary power and antenna connections.
2. Accessory Box – Stores the laptop, 30 Ah (ampere-hour) LiFePO₄ battery, end-fed antenna, para cord, chargers, forms, lighting, headphones, and other operating accessories.
3. Generator – A dual-fuel Champion 2500-Watt Dual Fuel Generator generator providing backup power for extended operations.
4. Power Box – Contains the propane supply, regulator, and extension cords needed to support generator operation.
5. Ham-Stick Tripod – A portable 19-foot antenna support system for field deployment.
6. Ham-Stick Container – Holds pre-tuned antenna elements for five amateur radio bands, including 60 meters.

Together, these components provide a complete HF communications capability that can be rapidly deployed to maintain critical communications during emergencies, disasters, and field operations.