Associations at the National and State Level
and Emergency Communications.

The logos displayed at the top of this page will hyperlink you to specific website information about the ARRL and its ARES organization information.

The ARRL is perhaps the most widely known amateur radio association in the world.  It provides a wide range of services to amateur radio organizations and individuals and the cost of membership is quite reasonable and for the price of membership a copy of QST magazine is delivered to your mail box each month. 

In the ARRL system the United States is divided into 15 "Divisions", these Divisions are then subdivided into 71 administrative sections.  To find out what ARRL Division and Section your city is in, you can use the ARRL city/state locator.  Look around the ARRL web site, there is so much information there for the radio amateur.  This is a place to visit and study.

The ARRL provides through its organization a formal structure to provide Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES).  The effectiveness of ARES in any given section or local area is entirely dependent upon the Section Manager elected to that section and the interests of the people that elected him or her.  Generally speaking the actual work of preparedness occurs at the local level and the person in the organization that achieves the results usually has the title of Emergency Coordinator in the ARES system.  So even though a national association such as the ARRL provides an organizational structure, advise and counsel, and political lobbying and support at the national level, the actual work of effective emergency communications is done at the local level by able and willing Hams who do cooperate with each other for the common good in public service.