ARES
Special Report: The Simulated Emergency Test
The first week of October is always the ARRL’s Simulated Emergency Test (SET). This test is
designed to get us out and working in preparation for events we hope never come. It’s not just
a chance thing that amateur radio operators are the ones who know how, and can get a
communications signal from a disaster stricken area. We can also use our skills here at home-
for an ice storm, missing person, communications loss or many other types of events.
As in the last couple of years, the overall Ohio exercise fell under the title “Black Swan”.
Orchestrated by Assistant SEC Matt Curtin, KD8TTE, the Black Swan 2019 was recognized by the
Ohio EMA, Ohio National Guard, Ohio Military Reserve and many other agencies. Those
agencies were acting on a severe weather scenario, with a resulting major power outage.
Primarily an exercise in message traffic and interoperability, Black Swan 2019 had strangely
formatted messages coming from all over the country concerning health&welfare, disaster
response and sheltering.
Within that umbrella, our ARES SET for Ohio had the goal of re-focusing our attention to more
local activities, getting people out and about, and most important producing a map of simplex
coverage that can be applied in real life for a real event. And that’s exactly what we did here in
Delaware County!
Many many thanks to Craig, Donn, and Mike who served as WIC (wranglers in charge) and to the
large number of ARES folks who were just awesome in plotting our simplex coverage. Mike
produced a map with some valuable depictions of our coverage.
You’ll notice we had a problem from the ARC to the southeast parts…but good news is we
discovered a relay from K8MP or W8SMK would cover across the southern part of the county
with excellence. We’re also weak to Sunbury (Larry already knows this!) Perhaps John W8NX is
in a good position to relay. So we know for certain now just how we need to approach a power
outage, blizzard, or any other debilitating event in Delaware County.
On the state level, we so far have a lot of the state covered, with more reports coming in.
We also know several counties are doing their own exercises as SET drills (Athens, Franklin,
Lucas and more). Counties that participated had anywhere from four to 20 deployed hams
testing simplex signal strengths.
An additional part of SET was sending message traffic. Any amateur simply needs to know that
stuff!! I have nearly ½” stack of messages delivered to the Sarge. Most were via HF digital, and
most were ICS-213’s. This is excellent. Now for the shocker (to me at least)… the Ohio traffic
nets actually passed 213’s successfully! This is major- it brings the traffic nets into the current
century, where we can serve our agencies with the forms ~they~ require.
Brent Stover, District 1 DEC WD8PNZ, added this perspective:
Just some of my thoughts on the SET. I really liked the concept of this year’s SET and I personally felt it
was one that was important and everyone should have been made to participate. The information
from the simplex map would have been very valuable to me should the SHTF. I arrived at the
Emergency Services Building downtown Toledo at 8:30 to warm up the equipment. I started my calls at
9pm. I never received a call to activate District 1 so I self activated it per SET guidelines. On calling the
EC’s from each county Seneca answered and was doing an aggressive SET and did send me updates.
Seneca County is my HERO! I was able to communicate via simplex to my ADEC Rob Hall who was
about 12 miles away who was set up for HF digital and he was able to communicate with Columbus. A
couple other amateurs from Lucas County who knew we would be on the county simplex frequency
checked in to the net.
Just some of my thoughts. I feel this was an important SET and just once wish it was a mandatory
participating event this one time. If things got bad, at least we would have a basic plan we could use
and practice. That’s my 2 cents worth.
Brent
Another participant in SET made the news-
In Greene County, Ohio, one public official not only observed the ARES Simulated Emergency
Test (SET) this month but participated in it with Greene County ARES (GCARES). Greene County
Sheriff Gene Fischer, KX8GCS (“Greene County Sheriff”), checked in when the Resource Net
Control, Bob Baker, N8ADO, of Beavercreek, called for volunteers. Although the suggested
scenario called for only using simplex, GCARES used the Xenia Amateur Radio Weather Net
(XWARN) repeater to reach out for as many volunteers as possible. Net volunteers then
switched to a simplex tactical net to communicate with the GCARES Command Center.
Before the SET, Fischer let Greene County ARES Emergency Coordinator Henry Ruminski, W8HJR,
know that he planned to participate in the SET to determine how well his handheld radio would
perform in an emergency situation. While he found it okay for getting into the resource net, it
was less than adequate for effective simplex operation.
Sheriff Fischer had an intense introduction to ham radio in the spring of 2017 when the Dayton
Hamvention® moved to Xenia, and his department dealt with traffic control and other issues
created by the influx of more than 25,000 visitors.
At the urging of several hams, Fischer subsequently got his license, and his wife became
relicensed. Fischer has since upgraded to General.
Ruminski said the SET was “relatively successful.” Signals could have been better from some
locations, but most stations were able to communicate with command, he said. Lessons learned
will be used to improve future emergency communication plans. — Thanks to Henry Ruminski,
W8HJR
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Amateur Radio is more than
a hobby- it becomes an
important service when
other forms of
communication fail. It’s up
to all of us to stay ready,
stay trained, and stay
available. We could be
required on a moment’s
notice.
Delaware County ARES is part of the
national ARRL program. We rely on
our volunteers. We operate during
several large public events including
the national-level Ironman
competition.
We hold a radio net on the 145.19
repeater (no tone) on the first
Thursday of every month at 8PM.
We hold a training meeting on the
second Thursday of every month at
7:30 usually at the Red Cross building.
All amateurs are invited!
For information, contact Stan, N8BHL
the Delaware County Emergency
Coordinator, or Joe, K8MP or Craig,
W8CR.