Editor: Rick Palm, K1CE [ mailto:
k1ce@arrl.net ] - May 29, 2024
ARES® Letter Archive
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â-¢Storms and Tornadoes: Amateur Radio Ready
â-¢ARES Supports New Hampshire Red Cross (ARC) Eclipse Standby Deployment
â-¢Letters: QRP is the Way to Go
â-¢Keystone 6 -- National Mass Care Exercise This Month
â-¢K1CE for a Final: NTS and ARES - A Symbiotic and Historic Relationship Needed Again
ARES® Briefs, Links
The 2024 ARRL National Convention was conducted with the Dayton Hamvention®
May 17-19 in Xenia, Ohio. Attendees learned about how amateur radio is
relevant and highly involved in the modern emergency management landscape.
ARRL Director of Emergency Management Josh Johnston, KE5MHV, hosted an ARES®
booth, which was supported by ARES® leaders and members of the ARRL
Emergency Communications and Field Services Committee.
On May 17, Johnston and four representatives from the Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) conducted a forum "ARES®, SAFECOM®,
and Building Relationships" as part of the ARRL National Convention track.
CISA is the federal agency SAFECOM serves. Together, they led a discussion
about how amateur radio emergency communications groups can establish and
foster relationships with served agencies.
Johnston is ARRL's representative member of SAFECOM®. In 2023, ARRL was
elected to serve on SAFECOM [
https://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-elected-to-serve-on-safecom ] ®, a program of
the US Department of Homeland Security. SAFECOM supports the public safety
community to improve the emergency communications ecosystem. This
relationship gives ARRL a seat at the decision-making table for emergency
communications policy nationwide.
"Amateur radio operators are in a unique position to serve agencies of many
different types, but that relationship has to be well established long before
a crisis," said Johnston, who emphasized that local partnerships are just as
important as national-level relationships. ARES groups work with local,
state, and county governments, and non-government affiliated organizations,
including local offices of the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and
faith-based organizations.
ARRL has released two new courses [
https://learn.arrl.org/learning-paths/emergency-communications/ ] to train
emergency communications operators for volunteering within ARES®. Both
courses are published in the ARRL Learning Center. In 2023, the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) revised the Guide for National Emergency
Preparedness [
https://www.arrl.org/news/amateur-radio-included-in-fema-guide-for-national-emergency-preparedness] to specifically include amateur radio. ARRL and FEMA entered into a new
Memorandum of Understanding in May 2023 that outlined the importance of
trained radio amateurs within the response ecosystem.
The 2024 Boston Marathon is in the history books - Monday, April 15, 2024 was
the Patriots' Day state holiday in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and with
that holiday came the 128th running of the Boston Marathon. More than 280
amateur radio operators volunteered across the Start, Course, Finish, and
Transportation functions, and various operations centers -- including the
Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) State EOC Unified Command
Center (UCC) and the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) Race Operations Center
(ROC) -- in Boston, performing communications duties that included logistics
support as a primary function and backup support for medical and other public
safety requests for the race as needed. Amateur Radio operators were
supporting the BAA, Red Cross and other agencies during the event. This is
one of the largest public service events Amateur Radio supports in the US. -
Rob Macedo, KD1CY, ARRL District Emergency Coordinator, Eastern Massachusetts
Section
.
Storms and Tornadoes: Amateur Radio Ready
Strong storms and at least 60 tornadoes wreaked havoc in the central US for
nearly 2 weeks last month. On May 1, 2024, President Joe Biden declared a
major disaster in Oklahoma. ARRL Iowa Section Manager Lelia Garner, WA0UIG,
reported that in the state, they have moved from response to recovery.
Currently, nine counties are under the Iowa State Individual Assistance Grant
Program and the Disaster Case Advocacy Program.
Garner said "Amateur radio has served our local agencies well. We recently
networked at a central Iowa hamfest and are building our emergency
communications capacity primarily through ARES®." "The opportunity to share
our experience and knowledge gained in the field has been critical to
supporting ARES® in Iowa," said Garner.
Garner added that awareness is the best tool. She stressed that amateur
operators and ARES® members work to help the National Weather Service and
other served agencies in order to make their work and the community safer.
ARRL Emergency Management Director Josh Johnston, KE5MHV, agrees that
everyone should stay vigilant in their awareness and preparations, even
during periods of less activity. "Make sure you are prepared at home and that
your family has a severe weather plan. This is extremely important if you
plan to be mobile or away from your home during a severe weather event. Your
safety is the most important thing if you plan to be active during severe
weather. Every ham who is interested in severe weather should take the
SKYWARN [
https://www.weather.gov/skywarn/ ] storm spotting class offered by
the National Weather Service," said Johnston.
He added that some of the most important aspects of preparation are
communication and building relationships. These activities, including drills
and exercises, need to be done during blue-sky days to ensure you will be
ready during days with severe weather. - The ARRL Letter
[
https://cometantenna.com/amateur-radio/mobile-antennas/ma-dual-band/]
ARES Supports New Hampshire Red Cross (ARC) Eclipse Standby Deployment
This was a group effort, with input from ARRL Section staff, multiple ECs and
members, American Red Cross (ARC), Department of Emergency Services, State
Parks and Lands, and the state's interoperability coordinator. The mission we
took on was in support of the Red Cross.
The Mission
Red Cross was asked by the state and towns to stage responders and vehicles
in Lancaster to deal with any mass casualty or sheltering needs in the
region. The premise behind our role in this operation was that cell service
would be clogged with calls, making it difficult for ARC teams to communicate
with their office and each other. The clogged network part turned out to be
real from about mid-day Monday until late in the evening. There is good cell
coverage in the region, but limited call capacity. ARES' role was to relay
deployment and logistics messages between the ARC office in Concord, and the
response teams staged in Lancaster if cell service wasn't available.
Planning and Prep
The planning team included Section Emergency Coordinator Al Shuman, K1AKS;
Section Manager Pete Stohrer, W1FEA, Emergency Coordinator Erik Rider,
KC1FZB, myself and others. Solid information was hard to come by in the
planning stage, partially because everyone involved faced so many variables,
such as how many day-trip visitors would make it to the north country, the
weather, crowd behavior, local capabilities, etc. Our plans needed to be
flexible. I made two recon trips in the weeks prior to the event to help firm
things up. The personal contacts and information that resulted were
invaluable. We met and talked with staff from Red Cross, HSEM, State Parks,
and DOT at various times as well as several operators in the Coos County ham
community. All were supportive of our planning and needs. Special mention
goes to the DOT Region 1 personnel in Coos County who went above and beyond
not only for us, but for all the emergency responders.
Former Coos Emergency Coordinator Bob Martin, KB1IZU, and I met and talked
during my first trip north. He provided valuable local insights, and made
sure both of his repeaters were up and running well throughout the setup and
operational period. Special thanks also to John Marcel, K1FDD, of the NH
Division of Forests and Lands, Bob Erskine from the Division of Emergency
Services, John Stevens, and State Interoperability Coordinator, for bringing
ARES into this event, and ARC Regional Disaster Officer John Montes.
One of the biggest problems was the logistics of putting ARES teams into an
area with no available overnight accommodations. That was solved by operating
from three self-contained RVs sited at NH DOT facilities. This issue also
forced us to limit the number of participants, and the fact that both RVs and
space to park them were limited. We considered recruiting local non-ARES hams
to assist but decided that might introduce too many unknowns into a
potentially high-profile operation.
Because the ARC office in Concord was the operations center for Red Cross
response, we installed a new HF station there with an IC-718, LDG tuner, and
a 53' end-fed antenna in the attic. We staged ARES teams in Lancaster at the
District 1 DOT and the Pittsburg North DOT garage, a few miles north of town.
The Lancaster team included two hams to respond along with ARC assets, and
one to be the link with Concord and Pittsburg. The Pittsburg team of two was
there to handle communications from the north if a deployment occurred.
We built plenty of redundancy into our plans because our knowledge of
coverage in northern Coos County was limited. In addition, it was a rare
opportunity to compare different long-haul methods and modes throughout a
single operation.
There were two communication paths to provide for: One was long-range,
between the two fixed stations in Coos, and Concord ARC. The other was local
communication between the two fixed Coos County sites and the deployment
team. Local communications were facilitated by the Clarkesville and Mt.
Agassiz 2-meter W1COS repeaters, which have overlapping coverage along Rte. 3
between Pittsburg and Lancaster. We also had a self-contained quick-deploy
cross-band repeater just in case a repeater went down and plans to shift to
simplex operation if needed.
The link between Pittsburg, Lancaster, and Concord was the larger challenge.
I opted for a redundant multi-path approach, using HF voice, HF NBEMS,
Winlink, and FM voice via the Mt. Washington repeater. At the last minute, we
decided to add DMR to the mix as an experiment, which required a bit of
running around since two of our three fixed stations lacked DMR capability.
Operations
During the operational period of 7 AM to 7 PM, we conducted periodic tests on
every path so we would know which one to use if ARC was deployed from
Lancaster. HF voice was the least reliable, likely due to weak propagation
and compromise antennas. It further deteriorated from the beginning of the
eclipse until we shut down around 6:30. All stations were on shorter end-fed
antennas, and our signals varied. I could hear whispers from ARC, but W1FEA
with his full-sized antennas was quite usable, if not booming. Other
home-based stations were also quite strong at times, but no one was hearing
our field stations well enough for relays. It might have worked better if we
had more home stations participating as relays, but the response to our
pre-deployment request was light.
HF NBEMS worked almost 100% of the time, although late afternoon on Monday we
had to slow down to Thor11 on 40 meters. Eighty meters was good in the early
morning, but 40 meters was better through the daytime and early evening. Our
seldom-used original 40-meter NBEMS frequency turned out to be the new home
of FT8 and similar modes, so I moved us to 7.060 MHz, which worked well until
late afternoon Monday, when someone attempted to jam us by sending random CW
on top of the signals in the waterfall. He'd start a second or so after the
transmission started and stop just after we stopped. Later, he was
transmitting some other digital mode and slowly tuning back and forth across
the waterfall on top of our signal. We ignored him and dealt with the small
errors it caused, but it's a future consideration.
The Mt. Washington 2-meter FM repeater was the clearest and most reliable
voice path. [At 6,288 feet, the mountain is New England's highest. - Ed.] The
ARC's base radio can't reach it, so Pete, W1FEA, was our relay from his home.
Al Bradford, AE1H, was our backup relay on both Mt. Washington and HF SSB. We
might consider experimenting with a higher-gain antenna for ARC's station.
Had the repeater not worked out, HF NBEMS would have been our best choice.
Earlier plans to have Mount Washington ARES members relay to a Concord
repeater turned out not to work well. However, we did have a phone in the
radio room, so messages could have been relayed that way as well.
Winlink didn't end up playing a direct role in the event, although both Steve
Davidson, NA1T, in Lancaster and Dave Colter, WA1ZCN, in Pittsburg were
easily able to connect to gateway stations. What we lacked was a known
monitored email address at ARC Concord, but that could have been solved
quickly if the need arose.
In addition, we had Twin State Radio Club's commercial VHF interoperability
radio set to VCALL-10 in Pittsburg to allow for communications with Pittsburg
Fire and others, but fortunately it wasn't needed. Had an actual deployment
occurred, it would have allowed more rapid coordination with other
responders.
The DMR experiment did work, but with a few problems. There were frequent
network dropouts (attributed to internet issues), and some transmissions
never made it through at all and had to be repeated. That caused a bit of
confusion. DMR audio can be difficult to understand under normal conditions,
and the network-related packet loss and dropouts made it even more difficult.
If we'd had to send a formal message over DMR, it would probably have
required multiple tries to get it accurate.
The Reality
The number of visitors coming north directly affected the timing of our
arrival on site. We anticipated the possibility of heavy traffic on Sunday,
but that didn't happen. We set up the Pittsburg station early Sunday morning
after an evening arrival on Saturday. The serious traffic started very early
Monday morning. In the end, Pittsburg, which was considered the best viewing
place, never really filled up with visitors. The crowd was large-ish but
stayed mostly in the town center. A few hardy souls ventured north toward the
border. We later figured out that many, many thousands more people were on
the way up, but made too late a start to make it in time because of the
"funnel effect" of the road system. There is only one good road from
Lancaster into northern Coos County - Route 3 - but there are many roads
leading north to Lancaster. Those roads were jammed all the way back to
Concord, and I suspect most folks ended up watching the eclipse from their
cars on the highways.
Post-eclipse traffic was even worse, because nearly everyone seemed to head
south at the same time. The highways in New Hampshire and Vermont didn't
clear out until well into the wee hours of Tuesday morning. We left closer to
6:30 and were finally able to get home shortly after midnight.
Random Thoughts and Takeaways
This plan worked, as far as it went. It might not have survived an actual
deployment that extended into Tuesday.
Redundancy is good insurance but takes a lot of equipment and extra work.
Working from the small RV dinner table with four radios and a laptop would
have been difficult if an actual deployment occurred.
Propane generators beat gasoline units for run time by many hours. Our
dual-fuel 2 kw unit ran up to 24 hours on a 20 lb. tank. We brought four
tanks.
There was no place to refill in Pittsburg, just exchange, which is much more
expensive. In a pinch we could have switched to gasoline.
We gambled on not having an actual deployment, but if it had happened, we'd
have had to call in extra help. That wasn't planned for. You can never do too
much thinking and planning. Just remember to edit it down to something
readable and understandable. Building relationships with key partners makes
everything work better. -- Dave Colter, WA1ZCN, Assistant SEC, New Hampshire
ARES [
http://www.nh-ares.org/ ] ; Interim EC - West Central New Hampshire
ARES
Letters: QRP is the Way to Go
I saw your note about checking into a Florida net with just 10 watts. I
operate Army MARS and check into the local 8 AM net with 3 watts (with an
Icom IC-703) every day. It covers Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and
Delaware, and it works every time. I use a 180-foot random wire at about 35
feet.
Twice a month MARS has a liaison net with CFARS (Canadian version of MARS) on
14 and 6 MHz and for this net I use just 9 watts to a trap vertical on 14
MHz. I check into SHARES HF nets every week also. Come vacation time, I use
just 3 watts to a rain gutter at a lodge in Virginia.
High power (QRO) is just not necessary. Put a good QRP rig in your ARES
shelter; it runs on a battery you can hold in one hand. Keep it charged with
a small solar panel and forget the Big Rig -- after a while you will give it
away. -- Scott McCann, W3MEO
Keystone 6 -- National Mass Care Exercise This Month
The 2024 National Mass Care Exercise, called Keystone 6, will be held in
Shippensburg, Pennsylvania on May 20-¬23, 2024. Pre¬-exercise activities
including logistics planning and movements, as well as training opportunities
have been occurring since March.
The scenario will involve large-scale impacts cascading across the region and
need for mass care services for more than 100,000 people. Pennsylvania will
be standing up a Commonwealth-managed shelter and activating
operational/planning mass care task forces for Feeding, Sheltering,
Disability Integration, Reunification, Household Pets, Distribution of
Emergency Supplies, and Housing. You can read more about mass care in
Pennsylvania. [
http://www.dhs.pa.gov/masscare ]
In addition to the Shippensburg location, the American Red Cross Greater
Pennsylvania Region (GPA) will also be conducting simultaneous shelter
exercises in each of their 10 Disaster Response Areas (DRA).
The Red Cross EMCOMM teams in both the Greater Pennsylvania Region (GPA) and
the Southeast Region (SEPA) are extending an invitation to Amateur Radio
Emergency Service® (ARES®) partners and hams throughout Pennsylvania to
participate. This would involve providing simulated emergency communications
between the Red Cross's 10 DRA shelters in the GPA Region and the shelter in
the SEPA Region during the PEMA Sheltering exercise in Shippensburg.
There have been three pre-¬exercises leading up to next week's exercise. A
March 16, 2024, test was designed to help players get acquainted with the new
Red Cross EMCOMM Stations (RCES) throughout Pennsylvania. The exercise was
organized by the Red Cross EMCOMM Team, which invited all Pennsylvania hams
to check ¬in with Pennsylvania Red Cross EMCOMM Stations using various VHF
repeaters. Hams were requested to check ¬in with their call sign, name,
county, and noting whether they were an ARES® or Red Cross volunteer. ARES®
ECs were invited to visit the RCES before and during the exercise.
On April 6, an exercise was conducted during the ARRL Eastern Pennsylvania
and Western Pennsylvania Sections' ARES Spring SET. On May 11, an exercise
was conducted as a dry run for the actual Keystone 6 exercise.
The PEMA National Mass Care Exercise will serve as practice for sending Red
Cross forms via Winlink between the PEMA Shelter in Shippensburg and the RCES
locations and pass some VHF voice traffic between the Red Cross shelters and
Red Cross RCES locations. ARES and club stations will also be participating
in the Winlink portion. -- Blair ARES Alert!, May 2024 issue, Drew McGhee
KA3EJV, editor; from information provided by Ed Majewski, Jr. KC3NAF, and Joe
Shupienis W3BC, ARRL WPA Section Manager.
K1CE for a Final: NTS and ARES - A Symbiotic and Historic Relationship Needed
Again
In the early 1950s, ARRL HQ staff made an effort to consolidate the Amateur
Radio Emergency Corps (AREC, the forerunner of the modern ARES program that
exists today), and the new National Traffic System (NTS) conceived in 1949
from the prior trunk lines relay system that had been employed which led to
the creation of the American Radio Relay League in 1914. Under one
ARRL-sponsored umbrella to be called the Amateur Radio Public Service Corps
(ARPSC), the goals were to have the NTS operate daily, 365 days a year,
handling routine radiogram traffic during normal times. The AREC would
conduct occasional drills to develop operating acumen and maintain a high
state of preparedness. Once a year, a simulated emergency test nationwide in
which the AREC nets would become active at local levels to handle simulated
emergency messages and the NTS would provide both local and long-distance
record message handling in support. This required close cooperation between
these two divisions of ARPSC.
It's time to bring them back together. Let's just say it: NTS traffic
handlers were, and now with the ARRL's major effort to renew and reinvigorate
the system, are once again emerging as water carriers for emergency
communication systems and programs like ARES. These systems and alliances
allow for competent, accurate message handling across the country when
needed. Professionalism and quality management are the hallmarks of the new
system.
The NTS 2.0 Committee is working hard to raise the standard of operation of
NTS traffic handlers and the system that has enjoyed a long, symbiotic
relationship with ARES (formerly AREC). I got my start in organized amateur
radio public service in 1977 with the Boston area repeater net - the Heavy
Hitters Traffic Net - and the Eastern Mass Rhode Island Phone Net. I'm
looking forward to reengaging with the NTS; not only for the public service
opportunity it offers, but also for the pure fun of it, as enjoyed over 40
years ago! -- K1CE
Field Day
Dovetailing with the above opinion, this coming Field Day, consider Field Day
Rule 7.3.6. Message Handling: 10 points for each formal message originated,
relayed or received and delivered during the Field Day period, up to a
maximum of 100 points (10 messages). Copies of each message must be included
with the Field Day report. The message to the ARRL SM or SEC under Rule
7.3.5. does not count towards the total of 10 for this bonus. Messages
claimed under this bonus must be in either standard NTS or ICS-213 format (or
have the equivalent content). All messages claimed for bonus points must
leave or enter the Field Day operation via amateur radio RF. Available to all
Classes.
Why not make the above a priority for your Field Day operation next month! -
Rick Palm, K1CE, Editor
ARES® Resources
�-�Download the ARES Manual [
http://www.arrl.org/files/file/PublicService/ARES/ARESmanual2015.pdf ] [PDF]
�-�ARES Field Resources Manual [
http://www.arrl.org/files/file/ARES_FR_Manual.pdf ] [PDF]
�-�ARES Standardized Training Plan Task Book [
http://www.arrl.org/files/file/PublicService/ARES/ARRL-ARES-FILLABLE-TRAINING-TASK-BOOK-V2_1_1.pdf ] [Fillable
PDF]
�-�ARES Standardized Training Plan Task Book [
http://www.arrl.org/files/file/PublicService/ARES/ARRL-ARES-STANDARDIZED-TRAINING-TASK-BOOK-V1_2_2.doc ] [Word]
�-�ARES Plan [
http://www.arrl.org/ares-plan ]
�-�ARES Group Registration [
http://www.arrl.org/ares-group-id-request-form ]
�-�Emergency Communications Training [
http://www.arrl.org/emergency-communications-training ]
The Amateur Radio Emergency Service® (ARES) consists of licensed amateurs
who have voluntarily registered their qualifications and equipment, with
their local ARES leadership, for communications duty in the public service
when disaster strikes. Every licensed amateur, regardless of membership in
ARRL or any other local or national organization is eligible to apply for
membership in ARES. Training may be required or desired to participate fully
in ARES. Please inquire at the local level for specific information. Because
ARES is an amateur radio program, only licensed radio amateurs are eligible
for membership. The possession of emergency-powered equipment is desirable
but is not a requirement for membership.
How to Get Involved in ARES: Fill out the ARES Registration form [
http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Public Service/fsd98.pdf ] and submit it to
your local Emergency Coordinator.
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The ARES Letter for May 29, 2024