Nothing is more beneficial for long-term planning than real ARES activations, but since these can't be arranged in advance, the next best planning tool is frequent well-designed training sessions. They should be carried out frequently in each County and District to familiarize ARES members with the needs and personnel of served agencies and with local emergency plans. Participation by ARES members in regular Section traffic nets is excellent emergency training and should be encouraged by ARES officials at every opportunity.
These simple training exercises, useful and necessary as they are, can do only half the job. The DEC and each EC should design specific test operations to identify weak points in their systems, and then devise ways to eliminate them or work around them.
Each session of any ARES net should be regarded as a training exercise. Frequent "repeater down" drills should be run to familiarize ARES members with hot spots and holes in simplex coverage and to devise work-arounds when the repeater goes off the air.
All ARES-related messages, announcements, and other information from these sessions should be relayed promptly to the EC and/or the DEC as appropriate.
Each October, on the third full weekend, ARRL sponsors a nation-wide Simulated Emergency Test (SET) in which ARES organizations can test their nets, personnel, procedures and equipment. SET offers an excellent opportunity for County and District ARES groups to invite direct participation by the agencies served by ARES. The date is elastic; it can be any time between 1 September and 31 October.
The SEC may direct a coordinated Section-wide SET exercise, or DECs may conduct independent drills specifically designed for local applications within their Districts.
The flexible date allows ARES planners to coordinate joint exercises with and local or regional served agencies. In the event of a major Section-wide emergency operation within a few weeks of the scheduled SET date, the SEC may cancel the exercise and treat the actual operation as the SET, including the formal SET report filed by each EC.
ARRL has formal memoranda of understanding with several national agencies, including: The National Weather Service, Salvation Army, American Red Cross, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), National Communications System, and Associated Public Safety Officers Inc. Copies of all the MOU s between agencies and ARRL can be found at: http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/mou/
At least once each month, each EC should conduct a one or two-hour test of emergency readiness among his members. They can test any phase of the group's capabilities, e.g.:
Check the range of a portable repeater in a temporary location.
Install and test a permanent antenna at an agency HQ.
Survey the County to find dead spots in the ARES repeater coverage.
Run a local net session exclusively on emergency power or on simplex or both.
Start and run every emergency generator owned by the ARES group. Repair the defective ones.
Hold a surprise net session at an unusual time to see how many stations check in.
After every exercise and every actual operation, the ARES officials involved should conduct an intensive debriefing session. Local and District plans should be updated to take advantage of the experience.