The Sussex County Radio Amateur Civil Emergency System (RACES) program will hold its first meeting of the fall-winter season for interested radio amateurs at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 9, 2010, at the Sussex County Emergency Operations Center near Georgetown.

The meeting is offered to operators interested in volunteering their time to assist the RACES program. The meeting will be held in the training room of the Sussex County EOC, 21911 Rudder Lane, east of Georgetown.

Sussex County RACES is a corps of volunteers assigned to aid the Emergency Operations Center during major disasters, providing a critical communications link in the event conventional radio, telephones or other forms of communication are down.

The meeting will include presentations on upcoming events that RACES will support, including the Bethany Beach Triathlon on Sept. 25 and the Apple-Scrapple Festival in Bridgeville on Oct. 9. The group will augment the County’s Mobile Command Post at these events. There also will be a discussion about recent RACES training sessions in digital communications techniques for local radio amateurs. One method involving acoustic coupling is now being used to allow any radio to work with a computer in sending and receiving error-free digital transmissions. Lastly, six new members will be officially admitted to the group.

If you are interested in participating with RACES, this meeting would be a perfect opportunity to learn more and get involved. For more information on the RACES program, visit sussexcountyraces.com, or contact RACES radio officer John Ferguson at (302) 858-5310 or k3pfw@arrl.net.

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