SAR COORDINATES

May 2008    

TONTO RIM SEARCH AND RESCUE SQUAD, Inc.

P.O. BOX 357
STRAWBERRY AZ 85544

A self-supporting, not-for-profit group of volunteer citizens dedicated to improving safety in the Arizona wilderness.

Operating under the authority of the Gila County Sheriff's Office
John Armer; Sheriff

TRSAR Squad meets monthly

General Public Welcome
2nd Thursday @ 7:00 - 9:00 PM
Payson Public Library Meeting Room
328 N. McLane Road - Payson, Arizona

 With the cool spring weather we have been having this year, I have been procrastinating changing over to a summer pack setup, but it is probably reasonably safe to do so by now.  Still, have some cool-weather gear handy, it has been getting quite cold at night yet, and with the high winds, the wind chill can be significant.  It’s a good time to go through all of your gear, change out batteries, refresh emergency food supplies, batteries, water, etc.

  Stay safe and stay prepared.

 Bill Pitterle – Commander, #500

YES Presentation

 3-Jun (Tue)      YES Program – Time: TBA – Place: Presbyterian Day Care Center, Main Street

  May 2008 Training & Events Schedule

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 Planned Training Sessions (Coming this Year)

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14-Jun (Sat)     Tracking Practice – Time and Place to be determined

18-Jun             CPR

16-Jul              First Responder

13-Aug            CPR

Planned           Navigation Training – Compass and GPS

Planned           ATV over night ride - 120 miles

Planned           ATV Ride/GPS Training

?                If you would like to volunteer to run a training session, or if you have a training session request contact

Any Board Member or Don Johnson 

Italics = Sign-up required to attend this training                                          

* See following notes:

P        To reserve use of squad ATV, contact Don Johnson at 928-474-5335

 Jacket, gloves, boots, helmet, and eye protection required to operate Squad ATV

Squad Web Site:  www.trsar.org

Planned Fundraising Events for Raffle Ticket Sales

Payson Wildlife Fair - Green Valley Park - Payson

10 - May – Saturday Time: to be determined

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Aero Fair - Payson Airport - Payson

17 - May – Saturday Time: to be determined

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Pine /Strawberry Arts & Crafts Festivals - Pine AZ

24 - May – Saturday Time:  800 - 1700

25 - May – Sunday    Time:  800 - 1600

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Pine /Strawberry Arts & Crafts Festivals - Pine AZ

4 - July – Friday                    Time:  800 - 1700

5 - July – Saturday    Time:  800 - 1700

6 - July – Sunday       Time:  800 - 1600

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Pine /Strawberry Arts & Crafts Festivals - Pine AZ

30 - August – Saturday         Time:  800 - 1700

31 - August – Sunday            Time:  800 - 1600

Business Cards for Active Members

All active members are permitted to have business cards with your SAR info on them. If you do not have them yet, or if you have used up the ones you had, contact Mike Taylor to place your order. They are nice to have when you are doing any Squad activities, and the best part is they are free. A common use for them is to hand out to family members of the search/rescue subject.

Email miket@trsar.org or call 978-8009.

Don’t forget; the meetings this month are May 6th for the Board and May8th for the General Meeting.

Computer Tips, Techniques, Rants, Raves, and Netiquette

Submitted by Les Hulse

To finish these articles on digital photography, let’s consider some Digital Photo Software.

There are hundreds of different software packages available for use with your digital photos. The costs range from free to expensive ($500+).

The products can be broken down into several groups – photo editing, photo printing, photo sharing, photo albums, etc. There are also programs to make slideshows and burn the results to CDs and DVDs.

So with all the stuff that is out there, what do I need?

Well, I will not make any recommendations since many products do the same thing and differ only in how they present themselves to the user. But I will make the following suggestions and give you a reason.

1 – Get software to reduce the size of photos. You will probably not need it for yourself, but when you send photos by Email, the persons who receive the photos will bless you.

I generally make small images to send to people and let them know that if they want the “big picture”, just ask and I will send it. This way they know that that huge Email contains what they want. This is much better than sending many huge photos to someone, having them spend a lot of time downloading (some persons are still on dial-up), and then discovering that they did not want the photos.

2 – Get a program to do basic editing of your photo. There are 2 important things the software must do: sharpening and color correction. Anything else is a bonus.

No matter how steady you are, there will probably (actually, most likely) be a little blur in your photos due to hand movement. I sharpen every photo I take. The color correction can be used when the lighting conditions were not optimal, and can greatly improve your photo. But be careful, sometimes color correction will make the photo look worse than the original.

There are many other things you can do with photo editing, but these two are the most important.

3 – If you want to keep track of hundreds (maybe thousands) of photos on your PC, you may want to look at photo album software.

I personally do not use this since I use a good file folder hierarchy. Some people find it useful to store each photo with keywords so that they can recover photos by description at a later time. The choices are numerous. 

4 – If you like to print your own photos, there are many packages available. Just remember that the biggest factors in photo printing are the quality of your printer, the ink, and the type of paper you use.

I use our friendly neighborhood Walgreen’s store for my printing – it is cheaper than special paper and ink.

5 – There are several software programs available that you can use to put your photos into a slideshow. Other options allow you to burn the shows to CDs and DVDs.

I use a combination of products to prepare DVDs with multiple shows and extensive menu systems. But this is not necessary if you want to put a maximum of 3 shows on a CD / DVD.

There you have it – just my opinion. If anyone is interested in the actual software products I use, feel free to contact me through the editor of this newsletter, and I will answer your questions.

Question: Do any of you find this section useful?

We can rant and rave about many topics, but do not know if it is appreciated. Also, we will most likely choose topics that “tick us off” and ignore the ones that you may be interested in. We can give you our opinion on just about anything (opinions are cheap).

So let us know if this section is useful, and if you would like us to tear into some topic, just tell us.

Send any comments and/or suggestions to the editor; Mike – address at bottom of newsletter.

Website

Tonto Rim SAR Members can now have your very own email address through our site. Just contact our Webmaster at jack@jackswebs.com  to arrange for it, no cost to you or us.

Just Musing

Sometimes rescue work requires a lot of creativity and good old Yankee ingenuity. One such instance was a night several years back when we were called to recover a subject from a vertical mine shaft south of Ox Bow Estates. The fellow had gone 4-wheeling on an old back road at night and there was this one spot where a mine shaft about 4 feet in diameter was right on the edge of the track. He apparently did not see it and dropped the left rear wheel of his truck in it, when stepping out of the vehicle to determine the problem in the dark he fell into the shaft which was about 35 feet deep. He did not survive the fall and our challenge was to get him packaged in a very confined space that only allowed one rescuer. There was barely room for him to stand, and he had to lift the body into the litter in a vertical position. On top of that, we did not have any tripod or equipment to lift vertically up the shaft.

The final solution was to park our truck with front bumper close to the hole, rig a 4x4 post at an angle over the hole with a pulley at the top and the bottom braced against the bumper. Secured with ropes it worked surprisingly well and did not break. We were able to extract first the subject and then one very exhausted rescuer by using the jib pole without any further problems.

This was just one example of the type of situation we encounter on almost every mission. We need always to be thinking of ways and means to get the job done safely and efficiently.

J. Mike Taylor 502L

Humor me

Thanks to those who contributed to this issue of the newsletter.  

Mike 502L 

miket@trsar.org