Dear Spotters,

The 146.850 repeater sponsored by the Metro Area Repeater Association has over twenty five years of involvement with Metroskywarn.  The repeater system is vast and has excellent coverage of the the Twin Cities Area.  This system depends solely on support from its users.  Even if you only use the repeater during severe weather nets, please consider a donation to help keep it available in the future.

Thank you,
  MARA


A REMINDER TO ALL SKYWARN SPOTTERS

Spotters will contact net control ONLY WITH SEVERE WEATHER OBSERVATIONS OR INFORMATION
SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED BY NET CONTROL.

Report:
     Any size hail.
     Damage such as damaged signs, roofs, or large branches or trees down.
     Persistent ROTATING wall clouds lasting 1 to 3 minutes, or NON-ROTATING wall clouds lasting 5 to 10 minutes.
     Funnel clouds.
     Tornadoes.
     Significant flooding causing water running (NOT PONDING) over roads, fields, yards, etc.

Net control may solicit reports from specific areas or regarding specific severe or non-severe conditions as warranted.

If you have a SEVERE weather condition at your location, you should contact net control by giving your
SKYWARN ID NUMBER, NOT YOUR AMATEUR CALL SIGN. So always carry with you your Skywarn ID card.

Net control will acknowledge you by repeating your SKYWARN ID NUMBER.

The spotter shall then reply with your location, to include, MAJOR CROSS STREETS and CITY/SUBURB,
followed by the severe weather condition that you wish to report and your amateur call sign. If you give a
report other than a severe or specifically requested weather condition, the net will be reminded to give only
severe weather reports or other specific information.

Net control shall acknowledge your report with the TWENTY FOUR HOUR CLOCK TIME.
This will tell you that your report has been recorded. (4pm local time = 1600.)

 

TIPS:
•Spotter safety is to be of PRIMARY CONCERN
•There will be two nets run simultaneously. You can use either repeater, but only give your traffic once.
     Change repeaters only if you get out of range of the other. There is no need to inform net control.
•Don't report the same conditions already reported in your area.
•If net control requests confirmation of a report from your area, and you can confirm
     or deny that report, you should do so.
•Non-rotating wall cloud: observe for 5 - 10 minutes before reporting
•Rotating wall cloud: observe for 1 - 3 minutes before reporting
•Metroskywarn and the EOC's do not dispatch spotters
•Access Net Control only with Skywarn ID#
•Report ONLY severe weather or specifically requested information
•End your report with your amateur call