The SKYWARN program at Weather Forecast Office (WFO) Romeoville/Chicago consists of spotters who watch the sky during threatening weather conditions. The spotters are emergency management, fire and police, amateur radio operators and trained citizens. They report severe weather such as tornadoes, flash floods and large hail to the WFO by radio or phone.
An Amateur Radio program consists of amateur radio operators (Hams) who come to the WFO during severe weather and operate radios. They are the National Weather Service Ham Team. The Ham Team communicates with other amateur radio operators who run local networks of storm spotters across north central and northeast Illinois and northwest Indiana. The Ham Team passes severe weather information from the spotter networks to the meteorologists.
The national weather service has an amateur radio station and they communicate on most of the amateur radio bands. WFO operates in the 70 cm Band and 2 meter Band most of the time. The WFO has HF communications, as well. The Ham Team use 70 cm and 2 meter “liaison” repeaters for receiving weather information. Emergency Managers and local spotter network control operators may relay severe weather information via these liaison repeaters to the Ham Team, who are working along side the meteorologists monitoring radar and issuing warnings.
The Repeaters the HamTeam uses are the following:
Valparaiso Indiana |
147.105 Mhz |
+ Duplex |
PL 131.8 |
Purple |
| Kankakee ARS |
146.940 Mhz |
- Duplex |
PL107.2 |
Yellow |
| Oregon, Illinois |
147.165 Mhz |
+ Duplex |
PL 146.2 |
Violet
(Ogle, Lee and DeKalb) |
| DuPage Radio Club |
442.550 Mhz |
+ Duplex |
PL 114.8 |
Backup for Blue |
| Morris Illinois |
442.325 Mhz |
+ Duplex |
PL 107.2 |
Green |
| WaldoFar |
441.300 Mhz |
+ Duplex |
PL 114.8 |
Backup for Blue |
| Echolink |
Winnebago County only |
Red |
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