ARES®/RACES
Wallowa County ARES®/RACES
The Wallowa County Amateur Radio Emergency Service (WC ARES®) and Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES), is one of 6 counties within Oregon District 3. Oregon District 3 ARES and RACES, is one of 6 Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Districts within the State of Oregon. The District structure, is comprised of non-profit public service Amateur Radio Volunteers who provide an Auxiliary Communications Service to Local, County, and State organizations for emergencies or during situations that may dictate a need for supplemental Radio Communications.
Operating practices are partly based on the operating procedures set by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) Field Services Organization, ARES, and guidelines recommended by Federal, State, and County Emergency Management agencies for Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service operations.
In addition ARES organizations may provide emergency communications services to organizations such as the American Red Cross and Search and Rescue units plus tactical communications services to organizations holding an event.
Local ARES members are unpaid volunteers who donate their time and quite often their personal equipment to serve the public need as skilled radio communication operators. While electronic communication channels are plentiful within Wallowa County there can be circumstances where they are degraded or fail entirely. That's where local amateur radio operators can step in and provide backup and emergency communication services inside and outside of the official ARES organization.
You can read more about the ARES organization here. The District 3 ARES/RACES website is located here. If you would like to find out about Amateur Radio and how to become a licensed operator check here.
Wallowa Memorial Hospital Hosts OADN Station
Wallowa Memorial Hospital in Enterprise, Oregon is the host for the Oregon ARES Digital Network (OADN) station. The hospital in cooperation with the Wallowa County Amateur Radio Emergency Service (WC ARES), Wallowa County Emergency Management, and the Wallowa County Board of Commissioners agreed to the arrangement where equipment provided through a state grant would be installed in a radio room adjacent to the hospital's classroom. The classroom also acts as an emergency command center during times of local, state, and national disasters.
The OADN is composed of Amateur Radio stations in almost all Oregon counties. With OADN equipment each participating county has the ability to transmit and receive electronic and voice messages under adverse conditions. These conditions could include failure of the wired telephone network, cellular service, internet service, and emergency two way radio installations.
Locally the OADN system uses three radio transmitters, receivers, and their related antennas to connect to other amateur radio stations on the amateur radio high frequency, very high frequency, and ultra high frequency radio bands. Messages, called traffic, are passed between these stations and emergency installations in Salem, Oregon and other counties in and out of the state.
Following disastrous flooding on the Oregon coast in December of 2007, Oregon's Governor allocated funds to provide Amateur Radio equipment to all counties for the purpose of emergency communications. Statewide the Oregon Office of Emergency Management handled distribution of the equipment to county ARES organizations such as WC ARES. Officially the equipment is on permanent loan to each county from the Oregon National Guard (ONG.) ONG accepted the responsbility of owning the equipment and adding it to the ONG inventory list.