Vol. 2004 No. 1	January 2004
PGNiner
Prince Georges County REACT Inc. - Team 2106

Happy New Year. Now get back to work.

Our December meeting was a dinner meeting at Topolino's Italian Bistro, 6320 Old Branch Avenue, Temple Hills, Maryland, at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, December 16. We were happy to have Dorothy Bricker as our guest. The team presented Dorothy with a plaque in memory of Jerry Bricker's many years of service to REACT. Thanks to Ed Brown for doing the legwork to produce this award.

Our January meeting will be back at the PG County Fire Services Building, at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday January 20, 2004, in the Maryland Room. Please bring any input you have for the 2004 budget, including estimated cost of any line item proposals.

The Maryland Mobileers Amateur Radio Club will hold a hamfest at the Odenton Volunteer Fire Department, 1425 Annapolis Road (route 175), on Sunday, January 25, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. This is a good, small swap meet with plenty of used radio and electronics bargains. Talk-in on 146.805 MHz, negative offset, PL 107.2.

The City of Bowie is making plans for another Memorial Day parade, to be held on Saturday, May 29, 2004, stepping off at noon. Mark your calendars and start thinking about your availability for this event.

Nets: Statewide REACT 2-meter net on 147.105 MHz, 1930 local time on the first Sunday of each month. National Capital REACT Inc GMRS net on the 462.675 repeater, 2000 local time every Thursday evening.

PG ARES/RACES net on 146.61 MHz, 2030 local time on the first and third Tuesdays of the month. Statewide RACES net on 147.105 MHz, 1930 local time on the second Tuesday of the month. You may also want to listen in on the Coast Guard Auxiliary HF radio net, 5.4225 MHz upper sideband, on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month at 1900 local, and the DOT HF radio net, 10.891 MHz upper sideband, on the first and third Sundays of each month at 1800 local.

SKYWARN still needs our participation every time the weather kicks up. You should have a NOAA weather radio at home for your own safety. When there is an alert, please check into one of the weather nets. If you are a ham, go to the Sunderland repeater. If you have GMRS, get on the air on our repeater. Announce yourself on the air and ask if there is a net control station already on the air. If there is none, announce that SKYWARN is activated on our repeater and that you are the net control station. If you have CB, monitor channel 9 for weather related emergency traffic.

The Foundation for Amateur Radio, of which Prince Georges County REACT is a member club, meets alternately in Maryland and Virginia on the second Wednesday of each month. The December meeting will be in Virginia. See

www.amateurradio.far.org

for details.

There was an Amber Alert on December 30. Martin Sanchez, age 30, took 4 children from their mother in Myrtle Beach, SC between 8 and 10 a.m. One of the children, infant Javier Sanchez, was reportedly not his. He was driving a white Ford Aerostar with Maryland plates so Maryland State Police issued an alert at 7:33 p.m. Howard County REACT requested PG County REACT to assist, but before we got our act together, Sanchez had called police and surrendered.

The Waterway Net relayed a message from the Coast Guard on December 31, asking vessels in the area of the Bahamas to be on the lookout for the INCAT 046. The 406 MHz Emergency Position Indicator Beacon on board had activated, and the vessel could not immediately be contacted to confirm or deny the existence of an emergency. Bill Riley, N3SNU, provided additional information to the net about the vessel, from the Port State Information Exchange database. As this is being written, there's no news as to how the case turned out. The Waterway and Cruising Club Amateur Radio Net meets daily on 7.268 MHz, lower sideband, at 0745 Eastern time.

The Maryland State Council of REACT Teams is on line at

www.marylandreactcouncil.org

Be sure to visit the site if you have internet access.