DeKalb ARES
Network Operations

Geomagnetic K-indices Last 7 Days

Courtesy of Space Weather Prediction Center

DeKalb ARES operates a weekly training net on our primary Dekalb ARES frequency of 146.76 MHz (-) PL 107.2 at 8:00 p.m. local time on Sunday. You may also check into this net if you are not in range of this repeater thru Echolink to W4BOC-R or node 330246. Dekalb ARES primary repeater new frequency change as of 2/4/2024. Dekalb ARES would like to thank the Alford Memorial Radio Club for the use of this repeater.

As of 3/13/2024 Dekalb ARES Winlink station has a new callsign of WD5EMA-10.

Other frequencies used by DeKalb ARES:

Alternate repeater = 145.45 MHz (-) 107.2 PL

Simplex operations = 146.46 MHz

Winlink VHF packet station WD5EMA-10 on 145.590 MHz

Winlink VARA FM station WD5EMA-10 on 145.530 MHz

We also encourage General Class licensees and above to check-in to the GA ARES net each Sunday at 22:00 GMT on 3.975 MHz LSB

The first Sunday of each month is designated at Emergency Power day when we like to have our members check-in using their emergency power supply to verify its performance. This test of our emergency power capability demonstrates our readiness to support our served agencies in a time of commercial power loss.

Also on the first Sunday of each month, DeKalb ARES does a simplex net to practice operation simplex and to get an idea of where simplex reaches. To make things easier, this link https://forms.office.com/r/3iKZkaTNHD can be used to report simplex contacts. This form can be used to report any simplex contact information anytime during the month also. So when you make a simplex contact across Dekalb county, please fill in the form. The more data points we have, the better will be our simplex path map.
 

James W. Penland

N4RAR

EC Dekalb Co ARES

Also on the first Sunday at 4:00pm, we check in to the Metro Atlanta ARES Net on the 146.805 (+) (PL 100.0) repeater located in Jasper, GA. Hams from all over the Metro Atlanta area are invited to check in when their county is called.

DeKalb ARES repeater facilities courtesy of the Alford Memorial Radio Club

Frequencies used by nearby ARES groups

* Enc/Dec - E indicates PL encode is required for access. D indicates that the repeater transmits tone and Tone Squelch may be used.

Net Control/Alternate Net Control Operator Schedule and Net Script

You can download the script for network operations for our regular repeater net here. NEW NET SCRIPT MODIFIED AND UPDATED 8/16/2025 to reflect new net logging procedures.

DEKALB ARES WEEKLY PRACTICE NET SCHEDULE

• A Simplex net is held on the 1^st Sunday of every month after the regular repeater practice net on the 146.760- MHz (pl 107.2 Hz) repeater at around approximately 8:30pm.The Net control station (NCS) will call for checkins (callsigns only) and then call back each station to allow them to give their callsign and then say a countdown from '5, 4, 3, 2, 1' then give their callsign and then say 'clear' During the countdown all stations on the simplex net will swicth their radio to 'reverse' or input frequency (146.160 MHz) of the repeater and record if they could hear or not the staion transmitting. After all stations have been giving a chance to do the countdown the NCS will call back each station and have them report which stations they could hear with signal reports and which stations they couldn't hear.  After the simplex net, use this link https://forms.office.com/r/3iKZkaTNHD which can be used to report simplex contacts. This form can be used to report any simplex contact information anytime during the month also. So when you make a simplex contact across Dekalb county, please fill in the form. The more data points we have, the better will be our simplex path map.

   

• DEKALB ARES WEEKLY PRACTICE NET SCHEDULE

New WINLINK RMS packet and VARA FM stations

We have a Winlink RMS Packet Gateway Station WD5EMA-10 (new callsign as of 3/13/2024) located at the DeKalb Fire/Rescue Headquarters building in Tucker, GA on 145.59 MHz and uses callsign WD5EMA-10.

We also have a new Winlink RMS Gateway VARA FM station WD5EMA-10 on 145.530 MHz on top of Stone Mountain using a callsign also of WD5EMA-10

We have Internet connectivity to allow handling messages into/out of the worldwide e-mail system for both of our Winlink stations.

If you have any question about how to set up your digital station, please contact Greg Mann, WC4Y at wc4y dot greg at gmail dot com

Build a J-Pole Antenna

For more information about how to build a J-Pole antenna you can go to this site: http://www.harfordemcomm.org/files/twinlead.pdf.

Check to see if a radio path might work over the terrain.

To get a radio path calculation, you can go to this site: https://www.scadacore.com/tools/rf-path/rf-line-of-sight/.

Send mail to ke4qcm at arrl dot net with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: Sun 1/27/2026 12:20 UTC by Tom KE4QCM