For the past few weeks I have been working on the ARRL Level 1 Amateur Radio Emergency Communications course.  I encourage anybody that has even the most remote interest in emergency communication to take this course.  I say that for those that would like to serve in an emcomm role, but also for those who just would like to understand how to contact their family, church members, business colleagues, etc. 

The course is a self-study course with quizzes and activities.   The activities are evaluated by a mentor via email.  My mentor, Ken (K7TAG) is an extremely qualified individual.  He is the Western Washington Section SEC and the Assistant State RACES Officer.  I think this clearly states that he not only teaches, but also participates.  His comments we greatly valued and he had several interesting insights into my activity reports.

I definitely took the 25 hours that is expected to be dedicated to the course.  There were 23 lessons.  I found that I often would complete up to 6 or 7 lessons on a single day, and found it easy to get very interested in the lessons and keep moving on to the next one.   I would think it should be easy for anyone to fit an hour, or less, into a lesson at a time. 

There are two more courses in the Emergency Communications series.  I hope to get to work on the EC-002 in the next few months.