FAQ, Troubleshooting Guide and Individual Line Explanations.

These instructions will tell you exactly how to fill out the report and inform you as each individual line meaning and options.

Page One :

On the First page of the Monthly Report you will see a selection choice for EC's to select the County they are the EC for, and the DEC's to select their district. Select either, but not both.

Click on the Continue button.

Page Two:

The second page will display the Month and year of the report, The County, District the EC's Name and their callsign. Then two buttons one to Continue with the Report, the other Nothing to report.

Do not try to edit any of these fields, as everything is controlled by the ARES database except for the Month and Year. If you fill out your Monthly Report later than the 6^th of the month, the date will have changed to the next month. You can edit the month and put in the previous month, but it will not get your information in on time to be in this month's numbers reported to the ARRL.

NOTE: If the name of the EC or callsign is incorrect , do not try to edit it. Continue with the Report, and in the Comments box on Page Three, make note that the EC name is incorrect.

NOTE: At this time – July 6. 2005 – the Nothing to Report Button controlling the nothing to report feature is not active.

Page Three:

This is the main reporting form. The Month, County, District, EC Name and Callsign are provided for you from the Database. If the information is incorrect, please make a note of it in the Comments section Line item 17.

Line Item 1: How many ARES members do you have on your rolls?

Line Item 2: How many members have you lost or gained this past month?

Line Item 3: What is the name of your Net? Most EC's call it their county name ARES net as in, Dekalb County ARES Net.

Line Item 4: What Frequency do you run your net on.

Line Item 4a: If your Net is run on your local repeater, what is the the repeater shift ? Is a PL tone used ? Type the tone frequency in the PL Field.

If the Net is run on a Simplex Frequency, Do not click on the shift + or -, type SIMPLEX in the PL Field instead of a frequency.

Line Item 5: What day of the week do you hold your net? Click on the Down Arrow and scroll down to select a day of the week. Click on that day and the selected day will fill the field.

Line Item 6: What time do you run your net? Is it 8:00pm Local time or you can also list it as 20:00 UTC. The choice is yours just be sure to list either Local or UTC along with the time.

Line Item 7: How Many Nets did you run this month?

All locally managed nets used for ARES training and operations should be reported. This total is then divided between training, public service and emergency operations. The number of man-hours for net activities should also be reported under their respective functions. A rule of thumb to use in calculating man-hours for these nets is the number of participants multiplied by the duration of the net:

Man-hours = Participants X Net Duration

If more than one net is conducted on multiple frequencies at the same time with its own Net Control Station (NCS), even though a liaison is established between the multiple nets, each net should be counted. The liaison’s station time should only be included in one of the nets for which liaison is provided. An example of this situation would be a parallel voice and packet net during the same training period which would be two distinct nets.

If local groups participate in regional or District nets, only the net relationship should be reported in the local report. All activations and activity in regional or District nets should be reported at the District level unless activated at the local level for a local event. Net Managers should report regional or district net results to the applicable DEC.

Line Item 8: What is the NTS Liaison you currently use? In Emergency situations, many times we will need to pass traffic through the National Traffic System (NTS) to communicate with State or National Emergency groups outside of your local area. (It is good practice to send a message once a quarter to your DEC through your NTS Liaison.)

Line Item 9: How many drills, tests and training did your ARES group participate in this month? This would include time spent learning APRS systems, Packet systems, and other modes of communications that could be used in Emergencies.

Line Item 10: How many Man Hours did it take for the drills, tests, or training exercises? Multiply the number of participants times the amount of time on the event.

Participants x Time spent on training = Man Hours

Line Item 11: How many Public Service Events did your group participate in this month? These events might be Parades, Races, Walkathons, Amateur Radio show and tell at local schools.

Line Item 12: How many man hours did your group provide in Public Service to the community?

Participants x hours of Public Service work = Man Hours

Line Item 13: How many Actual Emergency Operations did your group participate in? This includes SkyWarn operations, callouts for local Emergency Management Agencies, and any other type of true emergency operations.

Line Item 14: How many Man Hours did your ARES group work The Emergency operations?

Line Item 15: How many Miscellaneous operations did your ARES group work this month? This would include working on an ARES trailer or ARES Station at your local EOC, putting up antennas, or any number of ARES related activities.

Line Item 16: How many Man Hours were involved in the miscellaneous ARES work?

Line Item 17: Comments. Please place any questions or additional information in this box. The actual amount of text this box can handle is many times larger than the box that shows up on the screen. If you EC name or Callsign is not correct, please make note of it here, so that we can resolve it as quickly as possible.

Click on the Continue Button to move to Page 4.

Page Four:

Please check all information for correctness. If the information is not correct, please use your Browser's BACK button and correct the information on the previous page.

Click the “Continue to the last page” button.

Page Five:

This page is your final input page: The report you are sending will be sent to the people listed.

If you are not the EC, but are the person filling out the report for the EC, you can fill in the information requested so that you get a confirmation copy of the EC Report.

IF you are the EC for a county and the information in the main database is incorrect, please insert the correct information in these fields, then send the Report in.

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Completed Report:

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Shortly after sending the Report, you should receive a confirmation Email with a copy of the information you reported.

If not, Please Check that the correct Email Address was used in your configuration. Also Check your SPAM box to make sure your SPAM Box has not captured the Email.

If you continue to have problems or need to check that your Report was properly sent, contact Robert Tyler, KF4VBR at kf4vbr@arrl-ga.org

Click on your Web Browser's BACK button to return to the Monthly Report Program.