ARRL Simulated
Emergency Test (SET) 2010
The following is a quick
summary of the Tom Green County Amateur Radio Emergency Services
(ARES) 2010 ARRL Simulated Emergency Test (SET).
This is a nationwide
exercise in emergency communications, administered by ARRL Emergency
Coordinators and Net Managers. The main purpose for the SET is to give
local area amateur radio operators an opportunity to focus on their
emergency communications capability within their community while interacting
with NTS nets. This years SET weekend for the TGC-ARES group was held
on 30 October 2010.
The following is a brief
outline of what we did before, during and after the SET and some of the
scorecard results for the group.
1. The Tom Green
County ARES group members hold several meetings to briefly
outline the upcoming SET activities and to come up with a group
idea on what they wished to see and do during this years SET.
2. This year the group members decided to work on
net messages and on radio communications between several of the
City of
3. The group worked on an emergency situation
that involved the evacuation of families from the
4. Teams where assigned a shelter and each team
worked on their own messages, along with a few messages on behalf of some
of the served agencies (i.e., Red Cross, National Weather Service, and OEM).
5. The City of San Angelo/Tom Green County Office of
Emergency Management (OEM) approved the use of the EOC in which to use as the
primary communications center, for net control from the amateur radio
room, within the EOC.
6. The club house of the San Angelo Amateur Radio Club
(SAARC) was the alternate back-up communications site for the SET.
7. The announcement, over the primary exercise
net frequency (147.300 PL 88.5), about the exercise was activated
at 0900 hours on the 30 of October 2010.
8. Each of the assigned shelter radio teams
where notified of the exercise, dispatched and made ready to serve those
shelter agencies.
9. Each of the designated shelter stations would originate
their messages on behalf of the served agencies.
10. Test messages simulating requests for medical
supplies, medical support, additional shelter materials, shelter request for
pets, transportation request for transfer of evacuees, Amber type alert
for a lost child and repairs crews to fix plumbing problems at one
shelter, where just a few of the messages.
11. Additional simulated emergency messages
from the EOC to all of the shelters were weather related, thanks to the
San Angelo National Weather Service, due to the outflow of the hurricane
coming within the
12. Tactical simplex communications for the served
agencies was also emphasized.
13. Two local area repeaters, one VHF (147.300 Pl
88.5) and one UHF (444.350 PL 162.2), where used as part of the traffic
net.
14. Two simplex frequencies, 146.430 and 146.550,
were used in the passing of messages between the shelters to the EOC and
between each of the shelters.
14. Contacts where also made on HF, 7260 MHz, from
one of the shelter stations to the EOC.
15. All shelter stations were conducted on
emergency-only basis, with one shelter station on generator power and one on
solar power, with the additional stations running on HTs or mobiles
on battery power.
16. Each of the shelter stations worked off of
different antennas, along with their HTs and mobiles during the exercise.
17. After the
completion of the SET, for each of the shelter stations, the teams where
requested to stand down and to proceed to the club house for the after-action
summary.
18. The club house back-up station, manned by Hughbert
/ KC5NPC, was setting up the BBQ pit for the group to cook up some hamburgers, sausage
and other fixings for lunch before we have the after-action summary.
19. After a good lunch, the group members, from all of
the shelter assigned teams, worked on an after action summary for the SET to
submit to the SEC, DEC and to ARRL for this years Tom Green County ARES Simulated
Emergency Test (SET) for 2010.
16. The exercise lasted from 0900 hours to 1115 hours
with the following information:
Total number of Tom Green
County ARES group members participated - 11
Number of new amateurs
(licensed since 2005) - 3
Number of third party
messages on behalf of served agencies - 39
Tactical communications
conducted on behalf of served agencies - 2.5 hours
Number of stations on
emergency power during test - 12
Dual
membership in ARES and RACES 3
Number
of different agencies for which communications was provided 4
The following is a list of
team members for each of the shelters that the group worked at during this
exercise:
City of
At the Emergency Operations
Center (EOC) for the primary operations center was Mike Dominy / KD5URW &
Tom Austin / K4OTM
This years SET, for the
TGC-ARES group, was a good exercise for this group on what we can do during an
emergency. We find out the strengths and weaknesses of the group and what the local
area communications would be like to the different shelters and to the EOC,
when the time came for the need of this group. This also provided a good public
demonstration to the many served agencies, that we work with, such as the Red
Cross, the Emergency Management Office, National Weather Service and the news
media.
It is the value to the public
that Amateur Radio provides, particularly in time of need of emergency communications,
that we will get though when all else fails. But the main thing in the SET is
to help all radio amateurs gain experience in communications using standard
procedures and a variety of modes under simulated emergency conditions,
for you may never know when we may have that big one and for that, we must be
ready.
Signed as such on this date by me as the Tom Green County Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) Emergency Coordinator:
73 de
Mike Dominy