• Icom IC-718 HF/VHF- used for long distance and local communication. For example, if phone lines are down, the Ruskin WFO can communicate with the National Hurricane Center during tropical cyclones using this radio.
• Icom IC-207 VHF/UHF - used for voice communications during SKYWARN™ nets.
• Yeasu FT-8000M VHF - used for local packet / SEDAN.
• PC - APRS via UIView, Echolink, internet access, IEMchat.

Local County Nets

Many of the 15 counties in the Ruskin County Warning Area (CWA) operate their own SKYWARN™ amateur radio nets during severe weather events. Some of the counties operate SKYWARN™ net activations under the support or direction of county emergency management, ARRL ARES, or ACS affiliation, while others are volunteer groups or clubs with no particular affiliations.

County Nets will be responsible for SKYWARN™ activation and will be recognized as the official SKYWARN™ nets for routine or day-to-day severe weather events. This includes warm season sea breeze thunderstorm activity, as well as convective watches (tornado and severe thunderstorm watches). County nets will activate upon request from the Ruskin WFO or will self-activate as needed (typically, county nets self activate most of the time). County nets will relay severe weather reports and communicate directly with the Ruskin WFO via phone, IEM chat, or eSpotter. Since the aforementioned weather events typically affect only small groups of counties at any one time, net activation and duration will be dependent on the timing of the weather event itself, and will be determined by the net control. When it appears that the severe weather is about to enter a given county, that county's net control will establish and activate a directed net. When the severe weather threat has exited an activated county, the net control may close the net at their discretion.

Local SKYWARN Frequencies
(pl tone in parenthesis)

Regional Nets

The West Central Florida Group, Inc (WCFG) NI4CE repeater system (http://ni4ce.org) will be utilized for NWS Ruskin amateur radio SKYWARN™ nets during large scale natural disasters or large scale weather events such as tropical cyclones, during which the majority of Ruskin WFO's CWA is affected at the same time. During regional net activations, WX4TBW will be the assigned Net Control Station and will be operated by licensed, well-trained and dedicated Amateur Radio operators fluent in SKYWARN™ and emergency Net procedures. During such activations, all County-level Amateur Radio SKYWARN™ Nets will utilize the Regional Net to funnel their SKYWARN™ traffic to the National Weather Service whenever possible.

The repeaters of the NI4CE system include (all repeaters have a pl tone of 100):

• This mode means the repeater is free for normal use; however, a Net Control Operator will be standing by to receive criteria severe weather reports.
• NCO will make frequent announcements regarding the SKYWARN™ net being in standby mode (usually once every 15 minutes)
• This is not a directed net.
• Typically this mode will be utilized before warnings are issued.

• This mode means the repeater is now under a directed net, and all traffic should be directed through the Net Control Operator.
• Severe weather is occurring and/or warnings have been issued, and Net Control is receiving multiple severe weather reports.

• If any of our local county nets go down during limited coverage events, SKYWARN™ volunteers in that county are expected to pass along reports to NWS via the 1-800 spotter hotline, or a neighboring activated county net .
• Spotters in counties that do not have a local SKYWARN™ net should report weather events to NWS via the 1-800 spotter hotline.
• All regional reports sent through The Spotter Network (http://SpotterNetwork.org) are automatically sent to NWS Ruskin.

• The W4FLG (146.640 Mhz) repeater will serve as backup to the NI4CE repeater system for wide-area or regional net coverage in the event that the NI4CE system goes down.

• WX4TBW in Standby Mode
• WX4TBW in Active Mode

• WX4TBW Weekly Tuesday Evening Net

The NWS Ruskin SKYWARN™ weekly practice and outreach net meets every Tuesday evening at 9 pm on the NI4CE repeater system (see net frequencies for regional net). This net is operated directly from the National Weather Service forecast office in Ruskin each week. The purpose of this net is to provide limited SKYWARN™ training, make announcements of interest to SKYWARN™ personnel, provide local weather information (especially if severe weather is expected in the next few days), and to provide net participants the opportunity to interact with the staff of their local NWS weather forecast office.

The question and answer portion of the net has become quite popular over the past few years. During this portion of the net each week, a National Weather Service forecaster will stand by with net control to answer any questions net participants may have about the National Weather Service, or about up coming west central Florida weather. As such, this weekly net serves as your direct connection to your local National Weather Service office. When joining us for the net, feel free to bring along your questions for the NWS forecasters!

• Tuesday night net control - typically operators arrive at the NWS around 8:30 pm. The net begins at 9 PM EDT each week, and typically lasts about one hour. Each operator is asked to cover a net about once every two months.
• NWS liaison station during tropical cyclone events - volunteers will operate NWS Ruskin station WX4TBW and serve as NWS liaison to the SKYWARN™ net. This involves:
  • Come to the NWS during tropical cyclones (probably the best place to be anyway during this type of event!) and operate WX4TBW. Volunteers typically spend 6-8 hours or more, so come prepared to spend some time!
  • Communicate with the remote net control. This means you will be taking severe weather reports from net control and passing them on to the NWS staff. Also, you will be passing critical weather information back to net control and others on the net
  • Interact with NWS staff - this is an exciting and great learning experience!