ARES/RACES
Answers to Questions you Maybe Didn't Know Who to Ask?
Phelps TerHeun, W6PTH
Ever so Brief History of Emergency Communications
The advent of emergency communications dates to around the turn of the 20^TH Century with the sinking of the Republic off the East coast of the United States. The Marconi Man¹ on that ship restored his severely damaged radio room to operation and undoubtedly saved many lives by providing position reports to the shore station (there was only one) and the couple of ships within steaming distance equipped with the "newfangled" wireless.

1 The operator on the Republic was from the U. K. Upon his return to London, the posting for him was for the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic. Fortuitously, romance intervened. Not willing to be separated from his lady love, he instead accepted a local shore station operator position and the Titanic sailed without him.

The "Marconi Men" and their equipment were furnished to shipping lines as a turn-key service. The Marconi company installed, owned and maintained the shipboard and shore station equipment, and the operators were all Marconi employees. The equipment was spark gap, and the advertised range was perhaps a couple of hundred miles or so. More on a "quiet" day, significantly less in heavy thunderstorm conditions.

Unbelievable as it may seem to us today, wireless was not then viewed by the shipping lines, much less the Government, as having any real utility or as a resource in an emergency. It was rather installed as an up-scale novelty for well-to-do travelers and their families and friends ashore. Sending and receiving "radiograms" back and forth between ship and shore was one of the very "in" pastimes for the monied traveler of the time.

Amateur radio sprang up as fast as the (limited) commercial applications and services, and the relative percentage of people with radio technical skills in the earliest years may well have favored the so called Amateur ranks. There weren't too many "paying" jobs yet in the early days, but there were many non professionals with a keen interest in the new and exciting science of wireless communication.

Congress continued for a time to be un-convinced of the value of wireless, viewing it as a novelty or fad. This began to change after the first decade of the Century. In 1913 the Mid-West suffered monumental windstorm damage (possible string of tornadoes?) leaving a large portion of central Ohio completely isolated. Although not organized in any way, radio Amateurs at the Universities of Michigan and Ohio, respectively, together with other "Hams" established two way communications into and out of the stricken area. Notice was finally taken, and it was conceded by civil authority that wireless may have value after all! Meanwhile, Amateur Radio continued to help out in an essentially spontaneous manner whenever misfortune struck. However, any sort of organization specifically to support emergency operations was still some years away.

Federal Communications Act of 1934 and formal organization
Among other things, the Act of 1934 formally established the Amateur Radio Service. In 1935, the American Radio Relay League established an emergency communications and disaster preparedness program, the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES). ARES has grown to over 80,000 licensed Amateurs across the country, who serve non-Governmental agencies such as the American Red Cross and Salvation Army. ARES will also serve Governmental agencies in the early part of an emergency situation until the responsible Government agencies choose to activate the RACES organization. Once this happens, ARES may continue to support nonGovernmental agencies.

RACES, the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service, was founded and organized in 1952 to support local, county and state emergency agencies. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, established later, also encourages RACES. RACES supports only Government agencies, which may be at any level, local, state or federal, and under FCC regulations, may be activated by "any civil defense organization serving the area". Originally considered a "temporary" organization, it was founded to facilitate an immediate response from volunteers who, being already registered and "credentialed", could be activated without any delays, either administrative or with respect to designating operating frequencies. Provisions under the RACES organizational umbrella provides continued operation of RACES members on specified frequencies even after the President invokes war emergency powers. Other Amateurs (not RACES members) must cease operations. Administration of RACES is handled by volunteer Hams, specifically Radio Officers at the local level. ROs are approved by the local county, and in Kern County, the RACES "boss" is Charles Connor, County Emergency Manager. RACES may be activated by the County Sheriffs Department, Fire Department or city Police Department and once activated, RACES volunteers become temporary, unpaid, employees of the county while working an emergency.

In many communities, including Ridgecrest, most Amateur Radio operator volunteers are registered in both the ARES and RACES organizations.

What are the requirements for ARES and RACES membership ?
The requirement for registration in both organizations is exactly the same. Interested persons must be licensed Amateur Radio Operators. Period. That's it There is no requirement that registrants must belong to ARRL or any other Amateur organization, for that matter, and neither ARES nor RACES require the payment of any dues. Dual registration is therefore both easy and advantageous both to the volunteers and to the agencies they may be called upon to serve. The FCC prohibitions against RACES Amateurs communicating with ARES ceases to be an impediment, encouraging a seamless transition of all participants to RACES after that organization is activated.

Are there any training requirements ?
Believe it or not, the answer is no. However, individuals with no training or experience, will be of very limited to no value at all in an actual emergency. That is because the people with the training and experience are generally already in "gridlock" with work, and simply can't stop what they are doing to train a raw recruit. Generally, training of community Amateur Radio volunteers is accomplished by their participation in local disaster drills of one sort or another. Basic and very useful skills can and are successfully developed in this manner. "hands on" is excellent OJT. More formal training is highly desirable for those with the time and inclination, particularly people interested in liaison positions with the agencies served, or wishing to participate as net control operators, Etc.