Skywarn

It's located in Nevada, and is a, uh, extremely vital repeater- But it's been damaged by wildfires this season.

It's a two-meter repeater providing important connections for hams checking to weekly weather net for Skywarn, and its link is between the amateur radio and the Red Cross societies.

Uh, so obviously, uh, teams are doing the best they can to get everything back up and running as, um, I say, uh, quickly as possible.

It's, uh, to do with the Hawk Fire that knocked out a number of repeaters off the air, uh, when the blaze began affecting, uh, both amateur and commercial communications across the region for VHF, UHF analog, P25 digital fusion, and 900 MHz systems.

Amateur radio repeater KA7ZAU became a victim of a raging wildfire that consumed much of the region near Reno, Nevada last month.

The 2-meter repeater provides important connections for hams checking into weekly weather nets for Skywarn, and it is a link between amateur radio and the Red Cross.

Hams were still evaluating the repeater recently when they updated Newsline through email.

Greg Kranz, NT7Q, a director of the Sierra Nevada Amateur Radio Society, said that the building itself suffered no damage, but it appeared that radiant heat burned the feed line leading to the antennas.

He told Newsline the plan was to make repairs and get the site back on the air by Labor Day weekend if the local utility, Nevada Energy, restores power to the building.

The repeater's owner, Arlen Dwayne Robinson, KA7ZAU, said that the Hawk fire had knocked a number of repeaters off the air when the blaze began, affecting both amateur and commercial communications across the region for VHF-UHF analog, P25 digital, the fusion system, and 900 MHz systems.

He said that the 2-meter and 220 MHz repeater that serves Reno, Sparks, and the surrounding area have been on the air for 16 years and operate to support Ares, Skywarn, and numerous events.

Arlen is also the Washoe County Emergency Coordinator for Ares.

I get excited talking about AI.

Um, uh, all these programs that, that people like putting on their Allstar nodes, right, for ASL3 especially, um, the, the Skywarn stuff and the announcement stuff and, and all of that fancy stuff, um, yeah, put a no- put, put a little agent, uh, on your node, uh, or connect, uh, y- to your node via SSH.

Your agent can do that, and it can put all that stuff on there and configure it for you.

That's how I've configured my, uh, my, my Skywarn on my Allstar node.

I had, I had, I had AI do it.

I worked with it.

Oh, thank you.

When I first started in, like, 2009 to be a Skywarn Storm Spotter, And that's who I basically do it through is Skyward.

That is actually basically a program through the National Weather

Service.