ARESCOM

    Primary ARES® communications predominantly use amateur radio voice mode in our ARES® nets for tactical message traffic and relay nets for local, district and statewide or section use. Currently, there is no interstate, division, regional or nationwide ARES® voice networks. 

    Formal third party traffic on behalf of our served agencies may also use our ARES® and NTS amateur radio regular and emergency traffic section and regional nets to send and receive formal Radiograms as our primary means of record communications.

    Recently, the ARRL Board of Directors established a committee to study the need for new communications methods for ARES®. Such an ARES® Communication network, or ARESCOM, was envisioned to include a comprehensive program to enhance the current ARES® emergency communications capability to include rapid and accurate handling of long range (inter-state, national, and international) emergency related message traffic.

    Rapid growth in the use of email technology by our served agencies in Illinois to communicate has lead to the perceived need to provide a means of emergency email linking via amateur radio for these served agencies. A new goal of ARES® local units will be to link such served agencies for them to send, deliver and receive third-party traffic by email when their normal Internet communications are disrupted by an emergency or disaster.

    In the Illinois Section, our radio amateurs provide served agency support in ARES® during an emergency or widespread communications outage in Illinois may need to uniquely provide the "last mile" connectivity to an ARESCOM wide area network. Thus emergency and priority traffic and email may route via local digital mode amateur radio stations to and from their served agency to ARESCOM wide area communications networks in the emergency. Our Illinois ARES® local units may need to temporarily link mobile or temporary emergency digital stations to relay such critical or essential email messages to Internet linked stations for agencies to send such traffic for delivery and reply.

   Amateur radio operators registered in the Illinois Amateur Radio Emergency Service® are asked to help develop portable and fixed capability for ARESCOM digital networks in their local area. The clear goal will be to link as ARESCOM digital stations to serve their local area ARES® and their served agencies. Such station must be capable of operating during the emergency and able to link our served agency email in Illinois to other ARESCOM networks. These envisioned ARES® digital networks should include fixed digital regular operating stations that will function as regular links to the developing nationwide ARESCOM network. 

    ARRL Board of Directors announcement: ARRLBOD

    ARRL ARESCOM Committee July 2004 report:  Report
   
   

   "The American Radio Relay League has approved the inclusion of the Winlink 2000 Radio worldwide digital email network for their existing Amateur Radio Emergency Service® (ARES®). " and "The Winlink 2000 system is currently being utilized for emergency communications where local or regional communications are disrupted, including the the loss of the Internet, and where accuracy of information is paramount."
    Refer to the Winlink Organization Emergency page for more information:  WinLink

    Winlink participating MBO Status:  PMBO HF
    Winlink Telpac and PMBO VHF stations: Telpac/PMBO VHF