ARKAN HEART Project

Webmaster's Note: If you haven't heard any activity for the group it's because of the busy season and some other matters concerning the ARKAN club in general. We are supporting the hospitals and will continue to do so. We need more volunteers to help out. There is a lot of territory to cover.

ARKAN has a HEART! The goal of the Hospital Emergency Amateur Radio Team (HEART) is to partner with local hospitals to:

assist with emergency communications.
to conduct regular monthly tests of amateur radio equipment in the hospitals.
assist in testing the hospital's non-amateur radio equipment.
assist the hospitals in training their personnel in the proper use of radio equipment (operations, etiquette, etc.).

The overall goal is to assist area hospitals and at the same time train local amateur radio operators in hospital operations as well as give operators experience in handling emergency communications. Please attend the next ARKAN meeting to learn more about this new and developing project.

On August 28th Scott KD5KZJ conducted the first test by running the Thursday ARKAN Net from Willow Creek Hospital in Johnson. As a follow-up, on September 4th Hal K5NOW conducted the net from Northwest Medical Center in Springdale. September 11th Scott and Hal checked into the net from Washington Regional Hospital in Fayetteville. A test of Willow Creek on September 18th was also successful. A test on September 25th at NW Medical Center in Springdale was successful.

If you're interested in helping to perform testing from the various hospitals please let us know so we can get you involved. The benefit of this will be to help you familiarize yourself with the hospital layout, the location of the radio equipment, the protocols for gaining access to the radio equipment and to begin to meet and get to know the hospital personnel. It's a win-win situation!

The normal testing time is during the Thursday night net however, if you would prefer to test the equipment at a time more convenient to you then that can be arranged also! At other times testing may be arranged when the hospitals want us to assist in training their personnel in using the non-amateur radio equipment (HTs).

If you would like more information please send an email to heart [at] arkanhams.org.

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Webmaster's Note: If you haven't heard any activity for the group it's because of the busy season and some other matters concerning the ARKAN club in general. We are supporting the hospitals and will continue to do so. We need more volunteers to help out. There is a lot of territory to cover. ARKAN has a HEART! The goal of the Hospital Emergency Amateur Radio Team (HEART) is to partner with local hospitals to: assist with emergency communications. to conduct regular monthly tests of amateur radio equipment in the hospitals. assist in testing the hospital's non-amateur radio equipment. assist the hospitals in training their personnel in the proper use of radio equipment (operations, etiquette, etc.). The overall goal is to assist area hospitals and at the same time train local amateur radio operators in hospital operations as well as give operators experience in handling emergency communications. Please attend the next ARKAN meeting to learn more about this new and developing project. On August 28th Scott KD5KZJ conducted the first test by running the Thursday ARKAN Net from Willow Creek Hospital in Johnson. As a follow-up, on September 4th Hal K5NOW conducted the net from Northwest Medical Center in Springdale. September 11th Scott and Hal checked into the net from Washington Regional Hospital in Fayetteville. A test of Willow Creek on September 18th was also successful. A test on September 25th at NW Medical Center in Springdale was successful. If you're interested in helping to perform testing from the various hospitals please let us know so we can get you involved. The benefit of this will be to help you familiarize yourself with the hospital layout, the location of the radio equipment, the protocols for gaining access to the radio equipment and to begin to meet and get to know the hospital personnel. It's a win-win situation! The normal testing time is during the Thursday night net however, if you would prefer to test the equipment at a time more convenient to you then that can be arranged also! At other times testing may be arranged when the hospitals want us to assist in training their personnel in using the non-amateur radio equipment (HTs). If you would like more information please send an email to heart [at] arkanhams.org.
If you want to participate in emergency communications you need to prepare yourself by taking training courses that are available free from FEMA online. I would also recommend the ARRL Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Courses available through the ARRL at a reasonable cost. Here are the links. IS-100 National Incident Management System (NIMS), http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/is100.asp IS-200 ICS for Single Resources and Initial Action Incidents http://www.training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/is200.asp IS-700 National Incident Management System (NIMS), http://training.fema.gov/emiweb/IS/is700.asp IS-800.A National Response Plan (NRP), An Introduction http://www.training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/is800a.asp On-Line Emergency Communication Training ARRL Certification and Continuing Education (C-CE) http://www.arrl.org/cce/