Greetings to All:

Welcome. I am Rik Chapman, District 8 District Emergency Coordinator (DEC) for Amateur Radio Emergency Services (ARES). District 8 includes the counties of Burnet, Concho, Gillespie, Kimble, Llano, Mason, McCulloch, Menard and San Saba. The map of South Texas Section and district ARES structure is available on the home page of the South Texas section (http://www.arrlstx.org/). I am also District Radio Officer (DRO) for RACES District 62.

ARES district 8 is estimated to serve 114,556 people with a land area of 9,272 square miles. There are approximately 629 FCC ham licenses "active" in the district and 21 coordinated repeaters shown in the Texas VHF UHF Society data base. Burnet, Llano, and Gillespie are served by the Austin-San Antonio NWS WFO (code EWX) and Concho, Kimble, Mason, McCulloch, Menard, and San Saba are served by the NWS WFO in San Angelo (code SJT).

My plan (January-March, 2010) was to travel the district to meet with any club, ham, or served agency interested in emergency communications (EMCOM) support through the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) ARES program. Immediate actions included identification of existing ARES and EMCOM structure, identification of additional interested people, understanding infrastructure needs, identifying desired training requirements, and in conjunction with local hams and served agencies, developing a District-wide ARES plan to integrate into the South Texas Section ARES structure.

Now, I have had the opportunity to learn more about District 8 and the existing resources. This included a meeting with the NWS SJT Warning Coordination Meterologist as well as discussion with the NWS EWX Warning Coordination Meterologist. The District 8 Emergency Plan (1.0) is available in the public document vault on this website.  Please contact me if you need a Word(TM) format copy sent to your email address.

• The digital AEC for District 8 is Riley Carruthers, W5RLY
• The EC for Burnet County is Gil Jones, WA5GIL
• Concho       Open
• Gillespie      Open
• Kimble        Open
  
• The EC for Llano County is Gil Jones, KA5GIL
  
• Mason         Open
  
• The EC for McCulloch County is Rick Melcer, N5KAO
• Menard       Open
• San Saba    Open
  

Please contact me at "call sign at arrl.net".

73,

Rik Chapman, K5RIK