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The CANWARN List Server

My name is Paul Robertson, my callsign is VE3HFQ and the QTH is Belle River (about 20 km east of Windsor on Lake St. Clair). I have been a ham since 1974 and am active primarily on HF (15,20,40 and 75 metres). I of course monitor and participate in CANWARN on 2 metres as well. I work for the Client Services Division of the Meteorological Service of Canada (the weather section of Environment Canada)

Sixteen years ago, Randy Mawson (VE3TRW) of Environment Canada myself, and several other amateurs formed CANWARN. For those of you not familiar with the program, it is a joint project between Environment Canada and the radio amateurs. The purpose of the program is to receive reports of severe weather events from trained CANWARN spotters in the "field." The reports that are provided are vital to high impact weather forecasters to identify/clarify severe weather events in the interest of public safety. We started this program with 22 volunteers back in 1987 and it has now grown into a nationwide program with well over three thousand volunteers.

This year we want to enhance the communication link between Environment Canada and the CANWARN community first, to keep you apprised of training events, weather events etc.and secondly, to solicit new members. What better way to communicate with each other than by using Internet. Your name was acquired from the Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) website as a contact for the club in your local area. Being a ham myself, I know that most clubs issue monthly newsletters or bulletins to their members. How do we communicate with these bulletin editors to get them to publish CANWARN info to their members?

(1) we can e-mail them AND (2) we can communicate to the editors and anyone else who wishes to subscribe to the CANWARN Listserver that has been established by Environment Canada.

This will be the official listserver for the CANWARN program. How can you help?

•  register to the listserver
•  notify the bulletin editor of your club the establishment of the CANWARN listserver and publish the following instructions how to register (it's simple).
•  Mass (group )emails to club members letting them know the new listserver is up and running and how to register

To Register for the list server:

• Step 1- send an e-mail to this address
• Step 2- leave the title (subject line) of the e-mail blank
• Step 3- in the text of the message type the following: subscribe canwarn
• Step 4- send the message After a couple of minutes you will receive a confirmation from us that gives you specific information to send back as a reply that will confirm your e-mail address and that you personally did request to subscribe to the listserver. Once this has been confirmed, you will receive a "welcome" reply that will give you the formal instructions of how to use the listserver. Once you have subscribed, all you have to do to contact everyone on the list is to send an e-mail message to this address (it is hoped that several hundred people will see your message once we get everyone onboard the listserver). You are now good to go!

This is an "open" listserver (messages are not screened by a moderator before going online). Common sense and common courtesy will be the "name of the game." We obviously will not tolerate profanity or unacceptable personal comments. Should you have any comments regarding the program, please offer constructive suggestions and recommendations.

In closing, I would like to maintain this initial e-mail list for bulletin insertion etc. to your club. If you wish to be taken of this initial group e-mail list please contact me directly at my email address. Should there be someone else from your club (i.e. bulletin editor) you would like added to this list please let me know their e-mail addresses. We encourage you to register with the listserver and we look forward to making this a very productive, useful and fun program this year. Training sessions are being booked across Ontario starting late March and throughout April. Specific details such as locations and times of training will be posted on the listserver shortly. We encourage all regions to submit their training schedules ASAP. We sincerely appreciate your taking the time to read this and (apologize for the length, but had to cover a lot of "ground" in the initial message)

Best 73 to all,

Paul Robertson (VE3HFQ)
Environment Canada
Client Services-Ontario Region
Phone: (519) 728-9032
Fax : (519) 728-0017
Cell : (519) 360-7495
Email

 

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