I will say that the ARES in Calgary, outside of the flood last year and some ICS courses has been dead on the air. I used to spend most of my summers in the Edmonton area and know they used to be very active on their weekly nets. Now, not having been in Edmonton lately, I cannot say how active ARES is on the 2 m net. Nor for that matter have I listened to the Alberta ARES Sunday net on 3.675. The Calgary ARES net used to be on Sunday at 2000 hours but I have not heard it since before Christmas. I did not look at the Central Alberta amateur radio club site, but they often have an exercise [to give some experience in handling traffic and linking up repeaters Alberta wide-and asking for availability should amateurs be required in the Red Deer Area] in the Spring and Fall. It is sometimes held along with the Edmonton group. Overall, I would say that ARES activity in the Calgary area is very limited. Mind you, it probably helps that the Provincial EOC is based in Edmonton. As you know in Calgary CARA is not really an ARES group [although a large number of members are] but they are very active in the Public Service area. Foothills Amateur Radio Society does not have a specific ARES group but again their members volunteer as an ARES operation. The do perform some limited Public Service activity such as the Little Britches Rodeo [May long weekend], 5, 10 and Half Marathon [although with the flood last year this was cancelled], and some other activities when required. It is much less than CARAs activity. However, members of FARS and Calgary ARES, as in the Flood last year, certainly support each other. I believe Lethbridge area has an ARES starting up but can't really say how that is progressing. Can't comment about Medicine Hat, but believe members there also were active last year and do public service events. Thus, I'm sure all these clubs would enjoy whatever help you or other amateurs can offer when it is required. One thing I would say is look at all the various club sites, ARES sites and program the frequencies listed on these sites into your radio. Even though you may not use them all the time or vary often, at least you will have them programmed into your radio when they are required. The other thing I would encourage you to do, is look at the repeaterbook.com web site for Alberta as they generally have all the repeaters in Alberta listed. Some also have a coverage area shown for hand helds and mobile and this will give you an idea of what is required if you do go to a particular area to help out. It is of little help if one goes to an area and is not familiar with the repeaters in that area and their access codes [generally ARES is 100, FARS/CARA is 110.9 and SARA is 114.8]. I keep a list of all repeaters in Alberta [Amateur and others] and try to keep this updated largely by reviewing repeaterbook.com and Radioreference Data Base on a fairly regular basis. Then if any new repeaters or frequencies show up, I can program them in. And know how to program frequencies into your radio without using a computer. This will allow you to program or adjust a frequency on the fly without having to use a computer. That is why all amateur radios have front/key pad programming ability.
I do not know where to start... There are a lot of factual errors in this post. To start ARES Calgary is NOT a recognized group in Calgary, or Alberta, In ANY way, shape or form.
FARS supports a very well organized ARES group, Foothills ARES, and were extremely involved in the High River flooding, in fact were in the thick of it. While there is ARES in both Medicine Hat, and Lethbridge, the Medicine Hat group is not very cooperative with anyone.
Repeaterbook is probably the best database for Alberta repeaters, the Alberta portion of the database is maintained by a couple of Alberta amateurs, and they are very active in the radio community.
As far as PL tones, there is no set standard. Any group is free to use what ever PL they want. 100.0Hz is not an ARES 'standard' PL frequency, it just happens to be the PL the Edmonton group uses, and has decided to use on the provincially coordinated ARES portable repeater and ARES simplex frequencies. Because of this, the SEC and ASEC a recommend that other groups adopt this as well, although no group is forced to use either the coordinated pairs, or simplex channels.
SARA, as they expand, will be using 4 or 5 different PL frequencies, through out the province, based on a regionalized scheme, with 114.8 being the 'core' PL tone.
To the OP I sent you an Email a day or two ago, please contact me off board for more information regarding ARES, both locally in Calgary, and provincially.
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