Jim, Glad the Fenstermakers are all well. Actually, I heard a rumor, totally unfounded of course, that the FCC arranged for the storm to cover its latest two actions to "help" Amateur Radio. At least we know how to proceed concerning the code testing issue. Not unexpected. The automatic control issue? Wow! Shot down even further. Jim Weaver, K8JE, Director ARRL Great Lakes Division 5065 Bethany Rd. Mason, OH 45040 E-mail: k8je@arrl.org; Tel.: 513-459-0142 -----Original Message----- From: jfenster@pacifier.com [mailto:jfenster@pacifier.com] Sent: Friday, December 15, 2006 9:51 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: [arrl-odv:14940] "Twas am Interesting Night Hi Gang, As most of you have probably heard, we had a severe storm here in the Pacific Northwest last night. An extreme low pressure system passed from the Pacific and across Vancouver Island late last night. Winds in Portland (including at my Vancouver, WA house) exceded 80-85 MPH and were a bit lower in Seattle where we have our condo. My son reported many branches down in Vancouver but the antennas survived pretty much intact. Here in Seattle, I monitored the local Auxiliary Communications Systems repeater and traffic peaked from 1-4 AM then calmed down. Today, there are still over 1 million households still without power. Towards the coast, winds exceeded 100 MPH and that area is really suffering. Given the severity of the storm, it could have been much worse. Amateur radio and the ARES played a role, albeit minor in the greater Seattle area, as most folks stayed put in their homes and the time of the storm mitigated traffic issues. I have yet to hear about the coastal and island areas. Falling trees were the main hazards along with the resulting downed power lines. In any event, we dodged another bullet! 73 Jim K9JF