There you are running along just fine and all of a sudden there is shaking, lots of noise, and you feel your pulse quicken. It’s one of those “Awww Heck” moments when you realize it’s happened – a wheel has come off. Then you wake up. It was just the alarm going off, that tender shake to your shoulder, and a not so gentle “it’s time to get up”.

I had the real experience happen one time pulling horse trailer. I looked in the mirror and saw a random tire rolling through the median and wondered what fool lost a tire… and then the shaking began. Thankfully no horse was in the trailer yet. Several hours and a few dollars later we were running again.

Yeah, but you know the feeling – the real one – things were going well and it happens. You don’t recall the moment it happened but you know when it got bad and the shaking started.

Maybe it started when you forgot to ID your communication. Some folks have that issue as I read in a recent newsletter from ARRL. Cost a lot of hard earned bucks and probably some local ribbing. Section 97.119(a) of the Amateur Service Rules requires each amateur station to “transmit its assigned call sign on its transmitting channel at the end of each communication, and at least every 10 minutes during a communication.” I bet someone’s significant other was shaking something after that episode. A wheel came off.

We just participated in a CERT class graduation. ARES was glad to get the chance to work with the new CERT team. There were all sorts of disaster around and in the Courthouse as teams worked though the building and grounds, searching for persons and assessing situations as they came to them. Somewhere it started. A team stopped to assess a victim. In the ensuing discussion and work, half the team disappeared. All of a sudden the shaking started. Where were they, who is our leader, now what do we do, how can we deal with our victim now we have lost our help? A wheel came off.

How to keep the wheels from coming off? Well, there is the million dollar question. A good start is to check the wheel’s lug nuts. You don’t have to do it every day but sometime it needs to be done. When I worked for living we had a certain brand of service trucks that had a history of the wheels coming off. Some had lug nut indicators installed, if the blue tabs all pointed the same way you were good to go. We found the best method was to verify the tightness of each nut during the weekly safety check. In our Amateur Radio operations we do this through monthly nets, training sessions, planning sessions and discussions about preparedness. I appreciated the chance for ARES to work with our CERT partners to refresh ourselves of simple things like frequency selection, tactical assignments, recording those, reporting procedures and cooperation with our served partner to see communications worked as planned and no wheels would come off. By the way, do you know about CERT? What it is, what it does and why are we involved with ARES? Here is the website to start you towards those answers: http://www.co.grayson.tx.us/default.aspx?name=oem.certfaq.

So, check the CERT site out and see if it fits with you, attend our ARES training sessions, and be sure you have checked everything you can to be sure the wheels don’t come off.

I am glad to serve our communities with you.

73
Rick
K5ECX