About Us

We are a volunteer group of amateur radio operators that train and prepare to offer our services as emergency communicators to the City of Santa Clara. We do this through several organizations such as the civil defense RACES organization and the American Radio Relay League's ARES organization.

Meetings

We try to have a meeting, event or drill every month around the third Saturday of each month except November or December, due to the holidays. Please check the calendar above if there is an actual meeting scheduled for the month.

The meetings typically start at 10:00 hours (10:00 AM) in training rooms of Santa Clara's Fire Station 2 but not always so please check the weekly roster that is emailed out, the Google Calendar above or check in to the weekly Tuesday night net for details about the monthly meeting, event or drill.

Santa Clara Fire Station 2 is located at  1900 Walsh Ave, Santa Clara, CA, just east of the Walsh Ave and Scott Blvd intersection. If parking at the fire station (both at the entrance or behind the station) is taken, you may be able to park in the parking lot that is just west of the fire station or in the city's corporation yard parking to the east of the fire station.   View Map.

Nets

Weekly City Evening Net

There is a city check-in net every Tuesday night at 1930 hours on the Santa Clara tactical frequency of 147.510 MHz. A tone of 100 Hz should be used on this frequency since during the net, this frequency is also linked to the K6SNC repeater which gives net access on 442.025 MHz +100 and on 927.7375 MHz -100. All members and visitors are encouraged to check-in using this net control script (PDF) for that process.

(Semi-) Weekly City Noon Time Net

In corporation with the Intel Radio Club, there is a noon time net that occurs (currently) on the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of each month at 1215 hrs on the Santa Clara tactical frequency of 147.510 MHz (again, should use with a tone of 100 Hz since this frequency is linked to the K6SNC repeater). All members and visitors are encouraged to check-in using this net control script (PDF) for that process.

Weekly County Packet Net

There is a packet net each Tuesday night which concludes prior to the start of the County voice net at 2000 hrs. Check in by sending a message containing your callsign, first name/handle, city (City of Santa Clara) via Outpost/PACforms (see Santa Clara County Outpost/PacFORMS for more details), addressing the message to PKTTUE and sending to  W6XSC-1 (145.750, 223.620). (more details)

Weekly County Net

There is a county SVECS net done every Tuesday night at 2000 hrs (8 pm), right after our city's evening net. It is done on the AA6BT repeater at 146.115 MHz, +offset, 100pl and also on the linked N6NAC repeater at 444.625 MHz, +offset, 110.9pl. This net is used to report each cities totals to the county for their record keeping and reporting to ARRL. Members are encouraged to listen and follow along with this net as each city will get a chance to be net control as it rotates from one city to the next each week. The script for this net may be found on the Silicon Valley Emergency Communication System (SVECS) web site both a html and a PDF versions are available.

Please check the event calendar above to see when will be Santa Clara's next opportunity to be net control.

Monthly Hospital Nets

Santa Clara participates in two hospitals nets each month and both occur on the fourth Wednesday of each month (except for Thanksgiving and Christmas).

The first net is the Kaiser Hospital Net which starts at 1200 hours (noon). Members participating in this net for Santa Clara should arrive at Kaiser Santa Clara at least 15 minutes before noon in order to meet with our hospital liason and fellow HAM, Rick Filippuzzi, and then proceed to setup the radio gear for the net. Please contact Bill, K6WAR, for more information.

The second net is the county wide hospital net done at 1900 hours (7pm). It is done on the N6NFI repeater at 145.230 MHz, -offset, 100pl. Here is the current version of the Hospital Net Script (Acrobat File, Updated, January 21st, ). Please contact Bill, K6WAR, for more information.

Members are encouraged to listen from home. Those member wishing to participate, please meet in front of the elevators in the hospital's Courtyard Lobby. Consider parking on the north side of Kaiser Santa Clara, in Parking Lot A, which is the first lot you will come across when entering from Homestead Rd. You should arrive at least 15 minutes before the net. Use 147.510Mhz as the talk in frequency to reach other members arriving to support the hospital net. Map

Drills and Events

We just completed our biggest annual event which is being communication support for the city's annual Arts & Wine Festival which is a two day weekend event that takes places on the 2nd or 3rd weekend of September. Other events we support are the city's Easter Egg Hunt and Fourth of July celebrations.

Training

County ARES / RACES Training

We mostly depend upon the training courses offered by the Santa Clara County ARES / RACES organization which offers a variety of courses.

We recommend members consider starting with the following introductory courses:

Here is the upcoming schedules of county courses and events:

Event Calendar

For more information or to sign up for a course or event, visit the county's Training & Events System

Incident Command System (ICS)

A necessary part of our operations is following the tenents of the Incident Command System. To become familiar with ICS, we recommend that each of our members go through an introductory training such as this one offered by FEMA: IS-100.B: Introduction to Incident Command System, ICS-100

Discussion Groups

Groups.io santaclara-ares

We have a group page on Groups.io for our Santa Clara ARES / RACES members. All members should subscribe to it. This is replacing the group page we had on Yahoo!.

Social Networks

Facebook Group santaclara-ares

There is a Facebook group for members wishing to be connected there. If you already have an account on Facebook, follow this link to where you will be guided to a request to join the group page.

If you don't have an account but wish to access this group, go ahead and follow the link also. It bring up the login page for Facebook and from there you may register and create an account for yourself.

The major benefit of this group is help you to be connected with other members who also have Facebook accounts.

Twitter SantaClaraRACES 

You may follow the tweets of Santa Clara ARES/RACES by following "SantaClaraRACES" on Twitter.com.

Upcoming events are also viewable as favorite tweets. 

LinkedIn Group City of Santa Clara RACES

There is a LinkedIn group to connect those member who are on LinkedIn.

Membership

In order to become a member, a candidate must fill out this membership application. Once filled out and signed, please scan it and then attach it to city's ARES/RACES volunteer application which you will find here and will also need to fill out as well (sorry for the duplication - we are working to improve the process):

After which, please send an email to staff at santaclara dash ares dot org to notify us of the pending application. Once your application is received, it will be reviewed by the staff and then forwarded to the city's Emergency Services Coordinator who will then schedule a Live Scan for the applicant. Once the Live Scan is complete, then next step will be getting the applicant signed up and sworn in as a Disaster Service Worker. That will complete the membership application process.

How to Become A License Amateur Radio Operator

To operate a radio in the amateur radio bands, one would start with getting a "Technician" level license which is obtained by passing an exam. (more details)

One way to do this is to attend what is called a "HAM CRAM" where part of the day is spent learning enough of the ins and outs of amateur radio to pass the Technician exam and then later that day, take the Technician exam.

Here are some several organizations which offer training and testing sessions (called HAM CRAMs) in our area:

Contact Us

For more information, you can either join our Tuesday evening net as a visitor and ask questions then or you can send email to staff at santaclara dash ares dot org.