I saw a picture of this situation on the Internet the other day. A dog, maybe a dachshund, with candy sprinkles all over his nose looking up with those big brown eyes with a contrite expression on his face. The obvious question was “why did you do it?” And the caption was something like, “you shouldn’t have left them out, in the cabinet, on the shelf, behind the door.”
SO, why do you do it? Volunteer, I mean to ask. We certainly are blessed to have a great many of you available a great deal of the time. On Saturday the 10th Ben KF5OEB called up a Net on the 147.00 repeater. We had put out a notice the evening before via texts to the ARES cell phone list to be listening for the randomly called net to be called sometime Saturday. So it wasn’t a total surprise but could occur without notice. We did this as part of the Fall Simulated Emergency Test (SET) the ARRL Section puts on. The scenario was that there were widespread power outages, cell service and internet was disrupted due to major storms as I recall. In such an event you might be aware something is about to happen but would not know for sure when the call might happen. You responded very well, we had 13 check-ins and I know some others just couldn’t get to the radio because of other events going on Saturday. In a real situation those events probably would not be happening and those operators would have been available. That’s a great response! So here we are a beautiful Saturday with lots of outdoor activities and multiple reasons to be otherwise involved, and you chose to keep a radio on and available to hear if and when a net was called.
Sometimes we are faced with decisions about volunteering, when pulled in different directions by family, obligations, work, and a long list of other reasons. They can be roadblocks, “…on the shelf, behind the door” as in the dog’s story, or they can be challenges to be overcome or rearranged. I can’t possibly begin to try to determine why you all DO it, but I and our communities are thankful for you, that you choose to volunteer your time and equipment to our ARES efforts.
Thank You.
73
Rick
K5ECX