BIARC ARES 2019 SET Exercise

Aloha all,

We expected that ARES Hawaii would have posted their 2019 SET scenario on the hawaiiares.info website by now. It isn’t there yet, so the following is a brief summary to help everyone make plans.

The scenario is that the grid, internet, and phones are down, from a slow moving hurricane with 150+ MPH sustained winds. King Tides and heavy rains contributed to severe damage and flooding in low lying areas.

Exercise activities will be done on Simplex VHF/UHF using a hub and spoke system. Cross band repeaters may be used where needed. We will not use any existing repeater infrastructure, as the exercise assumes that antennas have been taken out. The hub stations should also have at least 40 and 80 meter capability on voice. Winlink will also be used extensively. The exercise will be divided up into two operational periods on Saturday, Oct 5th. Frequencies and modes should be documented on an ICS 205 prior to the exercise. I’ll be sending out a DRAFT of East Hawaii’s proposed ICS 205 soon. Each district needs to prepare their own message traffic prior to the event based upon the more detailed scenario that ARES will soon publish. Hub stations are asked to produce ICS 309 forms and after the event forward copies to ARRL SEC.

9:00 AM – 12:00 PM

*   SITREPs, Damage assessment reports, and RFAs to be sent to HC CDA-ACS. We don’t know yet to what extent ACS will participate  but there will be a station for HF voice and peer to peer WinLink on 40 and/or 80 meters here on the East side, even if it ends up being a “simulated” ACS.
*   SkyWarn Net – KH6DL / AH6QO. Operation will be on 40m or 80m depending on propagation. Simulated damage reports will be received on Voice, FLDIGI, and Winlink. SkyWarn has asked that these simulated messages be sent in real time based upon the described hurricane path they will publish. In an actual event, the purpose for SkyWarn would be to use the actual ground reports from each area to predict storm movement, intensity, and effects. Therefore these reports need to be sent as quick as possible after the observation is received.
*   HealthCom – NH7J, KH6CQ.
*   HealthCom NCS KH6HC will relay traffic to HHEM WebEOC (NCS189)
*   KH6HC@winlink.org PACTOR III on Amateur Radio Frequencies
*   NCS145@winlink.org PACTOR III on SHARES frequencies.
*   Backup will employ Telnet in both modes.
*   NHCH operate a Winlink station from the gateway NH7HI (HF and VHF/VARA FM) The gateway will be available for set traffic when not being used P2P for HealthCom messagtes.
*   NHCH will operate a SHARES station form NCS461; Kauai from NCS458.
*   Hilo will operate HealthCom on VHF, and currently has no HF capability at the Hospital. Hilo will relay traffic received to local HF capable hub for transmission to HealthCOM NCS KH6HC via Winlink.

14:00 – 17:00 Amateur Radio operations

*   Hubs will receive health and welfare simulated messages from individuals to be sent to families and friends email addresses informing of participation in simulated test using Amateur Radio email.
*   Stations, using any Winlink mode, will forward messages addressed to destinations outside Hawaii to KH6YY@Winlink.org for manual relay to mainland Winlink gateways.
*   The HF Superstation (http://kh6yy.net/antennas/) will use high gain antennas to relay traffic. This will be an experiment to see how well various Winlink digital modes operate in poor propagation conditions.

These plans are preliminary and may be subject to change. ARES has asked us to reach out to other possible “customer” groups and ask for their involvement. In East Hawaii we are attempting to coordinate with local CERT. We are also attempting to reach out to adult care facilities, clinics, etc. They might be able to help to draft realistic HealthCom messages, and possibly allow field stations to stage at their facilities to pass this traffic from a realistic location.

A Voice digital test bridging DMR Brandmeister, All Star, and DMR Hawaii c-bridge may also be setup, as RF linking IP based methods (non-internet) are being planned and will be implemented in the future to improve resiliency in the event of a major emergency. Groups maintaining these networks are being invited to form a bridge linking them to provide the widest possible coverage. The digital mode test will not be used for message traffic, just the logging of call sign, equipment type, power, antenna, repeater and mode being accessed and perceived audio quality. Stations are encouraged to check-in to as many repeaters and digital modes as available to them. The NCS will summarize the information in Excel and report it to the ARRL Section Emergency Coordinator (SEC) and others interested in the results.
More information will follow.
73
Tony Kitchen
WH6DVI
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