DELARANEWS

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 Read more next page

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.
DELARANews

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 Read more next page

ARES

Stan Broadway, N8BHL

Section Emergency Coordinator - Ohio Emergency Coordinator - Delaware County