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.com. Good evening everyone, it's time for HamTalk
Live, episode number 106. Local and State Skyward
Nets recorded live on Thursday, March 15th, 2018.
I'm your host, Neil Rapp, WB9VPG. Thanks for
tuning in to this episode of HamTalk Live. Tonight
we're joined by John Mills, KC9BRX. And we'll
take your calls live in just a few minutes. We'll
be talking about Skywarn this evening. And last
week on the show, we had Steve Waterman, K4CGX,
and Phil Sherrod, W4PHS. talking about how to
use WinLink. And if you missed that or any show,
just go to HamTalkLive .com and you can listen
on demand anytime you like. And then we're also
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Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeart Podcasts, Google Play,
TuneIn or SoundCloud. You can subscribe to us
there. And we're also on YouTube and you can
subscribe there as well if you like. So get your
Skywarn questions ready to go. After the interview,
you can give us a call. Let me go ahead and give
you the phone number. Now, it's not time to call
just yet, but let me give you the number. It's
812 -net -ham -1. That's 812 -638 -4261 for the
numerically challenged. Or on Skype, you can
find us at HamTalk Live. You can also send us
a question via Twitter. Our Twitter handle is
at HamTalk. live you can do that whenever you
like and we'll take a look at those after we
talk to John and by the way if you if you hear
some some loud cheering or screaming or or I
start crying, it's because the UK game only has
three minutes left in it. So, yeah, we kind of
got that on in the background here. So hopefully
that won't mess up the show here. So we'll be
back. We'll talk to John and then we'll take
your calls. After that, right after this word
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you heard it on HamTalk Live. Well, my guest
tonight is John Mills, KC9 BRX. John is an IT
Service Desk Specialist II working for Trimetics
in Indianapolis. John resides in Carmel, Indiana
in the metro Indianapolis area. John attended
Liberty University and Indiana University, Purdue
University at Indianapolis. which is commonly
referred to as an acronym of IUPUI or as we say
around here, ooey -pooey. John is one of the
directors for Central Indiana Skywarn, which
works hand -in -hand with the Indianapolis National
Weather Service office through amateur radio
to protect the lives of Central Indiana residents.
John has been licensed for 16 years and has been
with Central Indiana Skywarn for all of those
16 years. And John also spent much of his time
in his career in broadcast radio as an on -air
personality, engineer, producer, and even meteorologist.
John has worked for radio stations WXXP, WJJS,
WHHH, WZPL, and the Radio Forecast Network. also
spends his time in amateur meteorology and John
every time I hear those call letters WZPL I think
of this old Bob and Tom routine when they said
we wish Bob would go straight to hell or even
worse work at ZPL oh I remember that well yes
so That's immediately what I think of when I
hear ZPL. But anyway, good evening, John. Thanks
for coming on the show and talking to Skywarn
with us tonight. Well, thanks, Neil, for having
me. So first of all, let's just do a little bit
of a general overview of the idea of Skywarn.
So just give us a little idea of what Skywarn
does and how that information that's gathered
from hams from local nets. Eventually ends up
at the National Weather Service and then how
that helps them do their job. So Skywarn is basically
we have spotters in the field in each county.
and we position those spotters as to what the
weather service wants to see as far as where
the storm is and we try to keep those spotters
away from the most dangerous part of those storms
and those spotters in turn have a network net
in their counties and they relay that information
back to us. The whole process we have for our
local central Indiana sky where we have two main
frequencies here in Indianapolis and then we
link up with repeaters up in Lafayette, Indiana,
Frankfort, Indiana, and then down in Vincennes,
which you're a big part of that. And all those
repeaters link together in each county, wherever
their position goes into the closest frequency,
and they relay the information into us. How the
whole process works is, so the Storm Prediction
Center in Norman, Oklahoma does severe weather
outlooks every day. They do watches and warnings
and they do what's called mesoconvective outlooks.
When a mesoconvective outlook comes out for a
particular area, that local weather service office
gets on a conference call and decides where the
watch is going to be. And then once that watch
is issued, the local weather service will contact,
in our case, SkyWarn to bring up a net. Now,
they don't always contact us if it's a localized
event or if they don't think they need us, but
we kind of treat the National Weather Service
here in Indianapolis as our client and as our
customer, and we're at their back and call whenever
they need us. Once we bring up a net, then we
bring up the counties that we think are going
to be affected first, and those counties bring
up their local network, and then they send spotters
out into the field, if that kind of gives you
an idea how it works. Okay, so then what do the
forecasters do with all of that information?
So they'll look at radar and they'll see in satellite
and computer models and see where they think
the storms are gonna gonna be most likely and
once those storms do form then They'll have us
bring up that particular county which they'll
bring up a county net on either most likely UHF
or VHF depending on what type of county repeater
they have. They'll send hams out into that particular
county and then we'll provide the information
from the Weather Service where we want to position
those down to street level. The way the radar
technology works now is we can go to street level
and we can get those hams where we need them
to be and then they will report to us through
their county liaison uh... what the weather conditions
are so say for example they have hail they'll
give us an exact location the hammer porting
station and the size of the hail uh... and then
will position other spotters but again it's all
done through the local network uh... in the county
the local net with a county net control and then
a county liaison will read that relay that information
back to the central neos skyward net and if it
gets really really busy we we break it down and
we just we only take severe weather reports a
lot of times i've had events where we've had
to tornadoes on the ground in the same area or
maybe just one tornado but we just we limit our
traffic to emergency traffic only because the
quicker we can get that information very verified
a relayed from the county net back to us to the
Weather Service, the quicker the Weather Service
can make decisions on where they're going to
issue the next warning. They can get the information
out to the public through local media, Homeland
Security, Twitter, Facebook, all those different
resources. So when they take this data that we
help provide to make watches and warnings and
that kind of thing, we're kind of the The eyes
and ears where they have radar and radar tells
them a lot radar does a lot of functions, but
Especially when you get further out from the
radar site that they can't always see everything
and so The skywarn people are are the eyes that
are you know right there in a human form? To
kind of back up what the radar is telling them
That's exactly right Neil the radar technology
has gotten better and better when I first started
in 2002 it it was okay, and now it's gotten very
very good But like you said as the radar beam
goes out from the radar it goes up in the atmosphere
so that radar beam They can do a slice of the
lowest Lowest degree angle the atmosphere about
every one to two minutes But if you're you know
50 from 50 miles from the radar you may be looking
up at four or five thousand feet in the atmosphere
Well, we got ham radio guys all throughout the
county on the ground They're gonna tell us exactly
what's going on on the ground because a lot of
times You may see rotation up at four or five
thousand feet. It looks like a tornado, but on
the ground It's actually not touching the ground
or you may see hail But you don't know what size
it is. The radar can give you a general idea.
But without the eyes and ears of the hammer radio
operators, the weather service is kind of blind.
And a lot of times, when it is more than maybe,
say, 30, 50, 60 miles from the radar, there might
be a slight weak rotation on the radar signature.
But that amateur radio operator is on the ground.
He can see and say, hey, we've got a funnel cloud
or a tornado or a wall cloud. And that can give
the forecaster the needed information to go ahead
and issue that warning, where he may have been
on the fence. And if something is. Touching the
ground and could be doing damage to life and
property that amateur radio operator has helped
save lives Well, it's a very important role and
in order for all this information to get there
efficiently and accurately there are some things
that Needs to be done to make sure that you know
We're not reporting what somebody else has already
reported and it just goes in a big circle and
and that kind of thing so Let's talk about some
of the things that need to be considered if you
happen to be running a Skywarn Net or you're
one of the people checking into a Skywarn Net
to help make sure that everything is correct,
verified, and efficient. Yes, we always want
to know who what where when how and we always
want to know the spotters call sign We do not
take reports off of police scanners. We do not
take reports from the local media You know somebody
might report the sirens are going off. We don't
really that's not of interest to us. We are We
get all that information from the Weather Service.
We have a nice online chat, secure chat thing
we use that we're in constant contact with the
Weather Service and with Homeland Security and
with the media. So the media will send us information
and we have an idea of what's going on, but we're
looking out for the Weather Service and we're
basically the eyes and ears. So when somebody
is reporting something, you know, if there's
an event going on in the county like, you know,
severe thunderstorm or tornado, We're not going
to want the pea -sized hail report. We might
ask for it sometimes, but if there's something
major going on, golf ball -sized hail, tornado
on the ground, funnel cloud, wall cloud... we're
only going to look for severe weather criteria
and we we don't want everybody to be chiming
in you know like hey it's raining over here well
that's great that you reported that but we're
concentrating right now on the life and death
of what is actually occurring that's damaging
property and could it you know could be killing
people so we try to limit our traffic um when
it becomes really severe um all the counties
when they do bring up their net we have you know
they go ahead and let people check in we do that
on the state net but when we actually have stuff
starting to go uh... you know, happen and there's
an event going on, we start to limit things and
we have an incident command that we use and we
really try to encourage people to use radio etiquette
and realize it is an emergency situation. And
unless you have something that is going to add
to the weather service or help save lives, we
don't need your information. We just want you
to stand by and tell unless you got something
that's going to, you know, really help us pinpoint
where the storm's going and what's being reported.
So we try to try to limit every to an incident
command structure, the five W's, if it is severe
criteria, you know, one inch diameter hail, 60
mile an hour winds, funnel cloud, tornado, wall
cloud, that kind of stuff. And of course, that's
the criteria for our region here in central Indiana.
And every Skywarn net, that goes through a different
weather office may have slightly different criteria.
But the principle is pretty much the same, I
think, that you want to prioritize what you're
sending back so that they're not overloaded with
information, but they are receiving the critical
information as soon as possible. That is absolutely
absolutely spot -on. Yes spot -on each weather
service in each region. I think it's defined
by the region Central region southern region
the weather service has different regions around
the country And I think each region has their
own set of criteria for what they need to report
it now if the forecaster says hey You know sends
me a message and says you know, what do you get
out of this storm? You know, we're kind of interested
in this storm. We don't have a warning on it
right now But hey, what are you getting then?
I would reach out say, you know, hey Clinton
County. I got this cell South of Frankfurt, for
example, do you have any spotters in the area?
Can you tell us what's what we're getting there?
We do from time to time do that But again when
you're when you're in a major event, you've got
you know, like a devastating hailstorm You've
got a tornado on the ground you go into that
incident command structure and only people that
are prudent to that area who can give us real
-time reports we really really kind of discourage
all other traffic because like you said the the
net can get very very cluttered and you can have
people piling up on each other and it is an emergency
situation and we are providing a service to the
weather service no we're not paid we're all volunteers
but we're giving our community a great service
because like we said earlier the radar can only
see so much so when you have hams out in the
field what they're giving the community and providing,
you know, you can't, there's no other way to
get that kind of information. So we've got to
limit our traffic to the pertinent information
only until, you know, things kind of loosen up
possibly. But again, for the most part, we're
normally just asking for severe weather, you
know, a lot of times when I turn on the radio
and one of my cohorts is running the net and
I don't hear a lot of traffic, I think to myself,
well, there must not be a lot going on because
that's how we've kind of trained our region is
Unless there's severe weather, we're not really
keying up the radio unless the weather service
asks for a particular area, if that kind of helps.
Yeah, so we're keeping the frequency clear so
that if somebody does have some priority traffic
They can get in and they're not having to wait
around on You know, well it's raining the sirens
are going off, you know that kind of thing or
or just checking in for the numbers You know,
you're just checking in so that we can show that
we've had all these people there Well, you know
we can do that at the end of the net and and
you know when it's not in priority and sometimes
that's hard because you're kind of switching
back and forth you'll start out in kind of an
informal net where you're just kind of talking
and you know getting a feel for who's around
who's available who might be you know in a certain
area if if that call or that request does come
in but then all of a sudden when it hits you
have to switch gears you have to go to you know,
keeping the frequency clear and trying to make
sure that we get all the priority traffic so
that we're getting the golf ball size hail not
the pea size hail, you know, if that's happening
and it changes from time to time. Yeah, so what
I'll do generally and my president taught is
my mentor in nine GDR Mark Schaefer And so what
I'll do when I open a net I'll say, you know,
we're bringing up a net Here's the tornado watches
every thunderstorm watch what counties are involved
And then once the stuff gets going and we have
an area where we're gonna look at I'll say, you
know, are there any stations from this county?
typical new Montgomery Park Putnam any stations
and I'll have those stations check in and I'll
say, you know whether developing we're going
to have weather coming into your area can you
please bring up a net and you know let us know
you know who's your liaison station is going
to be and then about every five minutes or so
I'll give an update on what's going on as far
as warnings for our particular area and what
the radar is showing as far as what we're looking
at so kind of give everybody an update and that
way people aren't coming on and saying well what's
the radar look for my area what's the radar look
for this area well again we want to limit that
traffic so I'm kind of giving a synopsis every
five to ten minutes as to where the severe activity
that we're really concentrating is in. That way
we're not tying up the frequency with everybody
wanting to know if it's going to hit their house
or whatever. And if you just heard a big sigh
of relief... The Kentucky Wildcats were victorious
this evening, so that's over. So I don't have
to worry about that now. So anyway. You're not
sweating it out now. Yeah, not having to sweat
it out. Now we can do it all over again Saturday.
So that's a good transition to what I want to
talk about next, which is traffic the other direction.
we're serving the national weather service and
not the other way around and so we can also have
some issues where. You know we need information
to get it out to the spotter so that they are
safe so they know what to look for and what to
expect but on the other hand. A lot of times
we know there's a lot of you know friends and
family that are listening on a scanner and it's
tempting to want to broadcast. It's tempting
to want to you know keep reading the watches
and warnings over and over and over, and keep
the frequency going and keep the repeater active
when we actually need to be listening. So a little
bit about the announcements and maintaining a
good balance of providing data to keep the spotter
safe, but yet uh... you know we're not at or
not in the broadcast business the national weather
service the ones who need to make those watches
and warnings yet we don't we only relay information
from the weather service and like i said i try
to give a synopsis every 5 to 10 minutes of what
the radar is showing, what areas we're targeting,
and what warnings we have in effect. But if they
do come out with a new tornado warning or severe
thunderstorm warning, we're going to relay that
information to the county. So like, for example,
let's say Monroe County, a severe thunderstorm
warning comes out for Bloomington. We'll contact
the liaison station from Monroe County, let them
know. 95 % of the time, they've got the warning
too, but we just like to let them know there
is a warning, and here's where the Weather Service
to position the spotters. We don't want to put
our spotters in harm's way so we encourage them,
we try to position them like maybe a mile and
a mile and a half away from or the harm's way.
So say there was a tornado that was spotted on
the west side of Bloomington. We'd have them
south of that area and southeast and we'd make
sure that they have escape routes to get out
of their that area in case the storm would shift.
So we're not Having people punching cores and
driving dominators into storms were there to
report for the Weather Service and Get the information
for the Weather Service and not put ourselves
in harm's way Get as close as we can be to provide
that eyes and ears for the Weather Service without
risking our lives where you know you have some
of these people that they're they love the thrill
of Trying to drive into the tornado which to
me I've never understood it. I think it's the
dumbest thing you can do because as we saw Couple
years ago in Oklahoma. They had several very
very highly respected storm chasers and spotters
and even meteorologists who got killed because
the tornado shifted and they had no escape route
So we always try to think about the spotters
and position them but yet not too close. The
other thing with the Weather Service and how
the nets work, there may be a lot of times, I
see this a lot in the summer, we have a low and
severe thunderstorm that pops up and there's
no watch or warning. We encourage our counties
here in central Indiana, if they want to bring
up a net anytime, they are more than welcome
to do that, but we're not going to bring up our
state net for 39 counties until the Weather Service
calls us because we consider them, they're our
customer. And if the county wants to bring up
the net, that's great. They can relay that information
by phone, by Facebook, Twitter, or even the NWS
chat service. But we are just totally at the
beck and call of the Weather Service as their
customer, whatever they need us to do to help
them do their job better and save lives. And
the Weather Service does, at least here, does
a fabulous job of going out and training weather
spotters and giving them the information to know
what to look for, what cloud formations to look
for, and again, a safe place to do the spotting.
But a lot of times we don't always get the training
on What to communicate and how to communicate
and so that's kind of the gap we're trying to
fill tonight is give you a little bit of an idea
of. You know how to communicate that information
once you're trained as a skywarn spotter and
then working in one of these nets so We're going
to take a break, but we're going to take your
questions and we'll be back with John and if
you have a question we'll we'll take those calls
in just a couple of minutes and Also want to
mention the skywarn reflector. I had a note to
to talk about that so we'll do that right after
the words from the National Voice of America
Museum of Broadcasting and Amateur Radio Newsline
right here on HamTalk Live. The National Voice
of America Museum of Broadcasting located in
Westchester, Ohio just north of Cincinnati is
only two minutes off I -75. The museum is the
former home of the Voice of America Bethany Relay
Station. Tours are now available every Saturday
and Sunday from 1 to 4 p .m. Eastern Time. You
can see the control room, a 200 ,000 watt transmitter,
and the most comprehensive collection of inventions
by the iconic Powell -Crosley Jr. Also on display
is a huge antique radio exhibit and R .L. Drake's
personal collection of most every Drake amateur
rig ever made. This is a unique opportunity to
see amateur radio in action and have a chance
to get on the air from WC8VOA. Admission is only
$5 a person. The museum is located close to historic
WLWAM and tons of shopping and restaurants. Take
a trip to the VOA museum or visit us online at
voamuseum .org. Nominations are now open for
the amateur radio news line, Bill Pasternak,
WA6ITF Young Ham of the Year Award. I'm Don Wilbanks,
AE5DW. Since 1986, we've had the honor of celebrating
the accomplishments of Youth and Ham Radio when
we want to know about your exceptional Young
Ham. You'll find the rules and a nominating form
by clicking the Y -H -O -T -Y tab on ARNewsline
.org. Fill it out, send it in, and we'll see
you and an amazing young ham at the Huntsville
Alabama Ham Fest in August. Thanks and 73 from
Amateur Radio Newsline. Hey baby, what's your
sign? What's your call sign? You're listening
to Ham Talk Live with Neil Rapp. Join the conversation.
Call us on voice with Skype at HamTalk Live or
give us a call at 812 -NET -HAM -1. That's 812
-638 -4261. Now, here's more HamTalk Live! HamTalk
Live is on the air every Thursday night at 9
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.com and be sure to check us out on Facebook,
Twitter, and Instagram and it's time for your
calls now. So if you have a question for John,
give us a call at 812 -NET -HAM -1. That's 812
-638 -4261. Or you can Skype us or HamTalk Live
on Skype and you can also tweet us. We're at
HamTalk Live on Twitter. So be sure to chime
in and we'll say hello to Carl KD9HQT who's listening.
and mentions he knows all about the W9ICE repeater
here in Indiana that the state net is on and
thanks for listening in Carl and we want to mention
here KC5FM noted that there is a Skywarn email
reflector that ties in Skywarn, you know across
the country and that's on the qth net service
mailman qth net and I'll Retweet the address
here. That's probably the easiest way to get
that link because it's a little long but just
retweeted that so if you're interested in getting
on that email reflector that is another source
of information as well. So we're back with John,
KC9 BRX from Central Indiana Skywarn. And again,
we're We may use some of the Indiana things as
an example, but the same principles apply wherever
you are that information needs to be gathered
and verified and sent in an efficient manner.
And this is the structure that we have here in
Indiana that we're talking about. But there's
similar things in other areas. John, if you could
talk about a little bit of the dangers of, you
know, you see something on the radar, you know,
on your local net and then you call that in or
you hear something on the scanner and you call
that in. What can happen with that? Well, you
could put people in harm's way in your local
net. A lot of our local counties do have radar
software. Our group uses the Gibson Ridge GR
-level analyst software to track the storms,
but we coordinate directly with the meteorologists.
So if we see something that we might think is
an area of concern, we'll check with one of the
meteorologists first, say, hey, we're seeing
this. Do you guys agree? What do you guys want
us to do? And then they direct us rather than
We've had counties where they say, hey, I see
rotation. It's got a mezzo thing spinning on
the radar. Should we send somebody into that?
Well, we always want to check with the weather
service, because of course, they are the professionals.
They are the experts. We are amateurs. And we
always want to make sure this is where they want
to send somebody. And again, when we send somebody
to an area, we always try to position them here
in Indiana. And for the most part, when you're
spotting for tornadoes, you always want to be
south, southeast of where the wall cloud and
the supercell would be. We would never want you
to drive into it. I stressed that earlier that,
you know, you see all these chasers driving into
these things, and that's just putting your life
at risk and just not a smart move. So we always
try to verify the weather service. Here's where
the storm is. Here's where we're going to put
the spotters and then get the information back.
You know, if you hear scanner reports, the Weather
Service has, especially nowadays with all the
internet and everything, they have direct links
with state police, with Homeland Security, with
county sheriff, county police, the media, in
fact the media, our organization and other ham
organizations, Homeland Security and the Weather
Service all have a secure chat room that we all
chat within during severe weather and the Weather
Service kind of limits it to only emergency traffic.
So they're gonna get that information that you
hear on a scanner so you rebroadcasting over
your local net or to the state net is not doing
anybody any good because they've already got
that information and again as I stressed earlier
we want to try to keep the frequencies open for
pertinent traffic. We will have check -ins at
the beginning of our nets for our county and
our state but when the ball gets rolling and
the storms start rolling then we limit it to
emergency traffic only and you know there's even
times when we have a severe thunderstorm but
if we've got a live tornado on the ground that's
hitting an area that could kill people or do
destruction to homes, we limit the traffic only
to that area. It just depends on the situation.
We're talking to John Mills, KC9BRX about Skywarn
issues and so if you want to give us a call at
812 -638 -4261, 812 -NET -HAM -1 or Skype us
at HamTalk Live or tweet us at HamTalk Live if
you have a question or comment about the topic
tonight and also I'll remind our listeners that
last spring we had a pair of shows actually the
hurricane watch net and the voice over ip hurricane
watch net and speaking of here here one of them
is calling in right now but those you know are
applicable to the coastlines a little more than
it is for us here we're in tornado central but
there's all those other Nets out there. And so
if you are interested in any of that that hurricane
watch net or the voice over P voice over IP Weather
net make sure you check out the old ham talk
live episodes From last spring and speaking of
that. We do have a caller on the line and it's
Lloyd Casey nine He see five FM from the voice
over IP weather net. So good evening Lloyd and
what's your question for us tonight? Well, I
had actually called them to listen to the program,
but thanks for taking my call. And I always appreciate
your topical stuff, considering that Skywarn
is, well, spring weather season here in Oklahoma
is right upon us. We have a fire weather watch
today and tomorrow, warning rather, in Oklahoma.
So it's important to be all up to speed on all
kinds of weather. My friend, Katie, one C Y is
being hammered in the Northeast with the number
three blizzard. So there's all kinds of weather
in, in America to be weather aware about in Skywarn
is a program to help you, uh, do that. Um, I
appreciate that, uh, comment too about the VOIP,
uh, weather net over. Okay, Lloyd. Yeah, very
good. We, uh, we thank you again for coming on
the show and talking about that and, uh, and
often feeding us some information and so we'll
we may post a link to that show again later on
this evening after the show so you can find it
easily but it's there in the archive if you just
go back on hamtalklive .com you can find that
conversation so yeah Lloyd thanks for for calling
in and yeah the the nor 'easter's raging out
there in the northeast and Oklahoma, you're,
you're on a fire watch. Is that, is that what
you said? Or you got some, some route going on?
Uh, we have lots of drought going on about the
Western third of the stage is in drought. And,
uh, we have a fire weather warning in place till,
uh, well, it just ended, but we have a watch
for tomorrow. And, um, I'm curious to know how
many of your, uh, listeners are in Scott Warren.
but also participate in the Weather Ready Nation
program from the National Weather Service, weather
.gov slash WRN. Just curious about that. They're
really, really married programs. Weather Ready
Nation does pretty much what Skyborne had also
intended to be getting not only getting weather
reports to the National Weather Service, but
feeding our Neighbors accurate weather information,
not relying on an amateur weather person, but
feeding our neighbors accurate weather information
from the National Weather Service. I'm curious
how many of your listeners are even aware of
the Weather Ready Nation program? Well, if they
weren't, they are now. And that's one of the
goals of the show so that's that's good. So yeah,
I I would be interested in knowing that as well.
And Lloyd, I'm going to put you on the spot here
for a second because John and I have been talking
about tornadoes and you're mentioning the fire
thing. So we don't get that one a whole lot around
here. I remember one time we did and we had to
establish some links that normally we wouldn't
to kind of keep an eye on some things. So what
do you all do in a ham radio situation with Skywarn
with the fire warnings? Well, when we do have
a fire warning, typically our advice to the citizens
that we apply to ourselves is if you see smoke,
report it. Currently in Oklahoma, the western
tier of counties is under a governor's burn ban
anyway. So if there's smoke out there, you're
supposed to report it to local authorities. and
that way you can help enforce that burn ban.
Second, it's important that our operators have
radar skills and the smoke detector on our radar
and radar scope is base reflectivity level one
and coalition coefficient level one and those
will detect the smoke plumes before anything
else. uh, and any other radar product. So those
are the two things. If you see smoke, report
it and watch your radar for smoke plumes. Okay.
Well, we learned something, John. Yes, we did.
And speaking of Weather Ready Nation, our organization,
Central Indiana Skyward, is a Weather Ready Nation.
And that is being promoted by the Indianapolis
Weather Office, like you had mentioned earlier,
when they go out and do the county talks. They
also try to get businesses and the county weather
ready as well with the Weather Ready Nation program.
No, I see a lot of the county. Well, we'll get
like a rating, you know that they're they are
weather ready and see the signs out there a lot
And that your long was skywarn Skywarn was originally
the number one Then storm ready was number two
It was a program developed out of the Norman
National Weather Service office and the Tulsa
National Weather Service office and Oklahoma
and storm ready you can be a storm ready community
a county a university, a school, you can be a
storm -ready military base, and I think there's
even a storm -ready band, but that all involves
being involved with a community being able to
document to the Weather Service that they are
storm -ready, and it all ties into also to SkyWarn
and to Weather Ready Nation. All right, Lloyd.
Well, thanks for... Bringing that to our attention
and we'll try to get those links sent out on
that as well. So thanks for calling in tonight.
And thanks for taking my call. I appreciate your
program. Be safe. All right. Okay. You too, Lloyd.
Take care. Be careful. Seven three seven five.
All right. Well, we've got about a minute left
here, John. So I'm going to check the tweets
one more time, but we're probably out of time
for. For calls this evening. Don't see anything
else coming up on on Twitter. So we'll just kind
of finish things up here with any last comments
that you have or Anything that we forgot No,
I appreciate you having me on the show just want
to reiterate you can Probably go to your local
National Weather Service offices to find spotter
training because I think all the offices uh...
do it and uh... you if you want to get some more
training on how to spot and what to look for
cuz they go through everything i've been through
many of them were actually having a regional
one this weekend here in indianapolis on advanced
spotter training and they'll do a presentation
at the county level of the clouds and what to
look for and what to report and is it's really
good so you can go to your local weather service
office off of noah dot gov and i gather the information
on where your spotter training might be But just
to reiterate, when we bring up nets, make sure
if there is something going on that you, uh,
you know, limit your traffic unless you've got
something that's very pertinent and they can
help save lives. That's the big point that I
want to stress tonight. All right, John. Well,
thank you so much for, uh, taking the time to
come on and even installing Skype. That may have
been a big move. Installing site. Oh, yeah took
hours. I've been all day. I've been installing
Skype About three minutes and I was there. Unfortunately,
I'm a techie like you Yeah, yeah, there we go.
Well, thank you John and that is a wrap for This
week's episode of ham talk live. Thanks to John
Mills Casey nine BRX And everyone out there in
cyberspace for listening and calling in and I
invite you back next Thursday night at 9 p .m.
Eastern Time when Rob Brownstein, K6RB, will
be here to talk about CW Ops, an organization
of CW operators. And for a list of all of our
upcoming guests, and it's been updated quite
a bit recently, go over to HamTalkLive .com and
just click on that show schedule link and you
can find out who's coming up in the... the next
several weeks. So for now, this is Neil Rapp,
WB9VPG, saying 7 -3, 7 -5, and as always, may
the good DX be yours. Thanks for watching! 73,
and good luck from HamTalk Live.