General / Contact Information
Clay County Amateur Radio Emergency Services
P.O. Box 65456
Orange Park, Florida 32065
904.413.1573
Officers
Emergency Coordinator: Adrian Gray, K4AWG agrayt1@comcast.net 904-772-4376
Assistant EC: Joe Bassett, W1WCN — w1wcn@comcast.net
Assistant EC / Public Information Officer: Scott Roberts, KK4ECR — kk4ecr@gmail.com 904-759-7812
Call Sign: KI4UWC
The Amateur Radio Emergency Service® (ARES) consists of licensed amateurs who have voluntarily registered their qualifications and equipment, with their local ARES leadership, for communications duty in the public service when disaster strikes. Since 1935, ARES has provided radio communications in North America and around the world in times of need.
In these modern times of cellular phones and the Internet, we take instant communications for granted. We forget how fragile our communications systems are. We forget that only one critical piece of communications infrastructure has to fail or become overloaded to render it unusable in times of emergency!
Every ARES member in the United States is licensed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to own, maintain, and operate private radio equipment. We use VHF and UHF radios for local communications, and HF (short wave) radios for statewide and international communications. We can use this network of amateur repeater stations to send emergency messages.
ARES is part of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL). ARRL is recognized by the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU), the organization which links together all the national amateur radio societies in the World.
Clay County Amateur Radio Emergency Services has a current membership of 69 licensed operators who are ready to serve our community should the need arise. Training meetings are held on the first Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m. at the Journey Church, 6225 Lake Gray Blvd Suite 2, Jacksonville, FL 32244.
For more information visit the Clay County ARES website: http://www.clayares.org.