[CTSARA] ARES Takes Two Body Blows

[Jon Perelstein]

ARES took two big body-blows recently, as reported in the ARRL's "The ARES 
E-Letter for October 6, 2010".


1.  Flagler County FL essentially secedes from ARES.  

The Flagler County Florida ARES organization is viewed as one of the premier 
ARES organizations in the country, and each ARES E-Letter starts out with a 
piece called "The View from Flagler County".  Here is a key excerpt from that 
View:

"Flagler County Emergency Services, the governmental agency responsible for the 
management of the large county EOC, has elected to change the way it coordinates 
with volunteer groups, including several emergency communications groups. ARES® 
will be incorporated under this new structure. Instead of having volunteer 
communicators and operators serve the EOC via liaison with leaders of the 
volunteer groups, emergency management will now seek to manage the volunteers 
directly by having each volunteer apply for and be trained for specific duties 
under the direct supervision of EM officials."


In other words, Flagler County Emergency Services is taking control of its 
emergency communications away from ARES and will instead control the 
communications directly.  I'm sure we'll hear all sorts of harumphing and 
hemming and hawing from ARRL and ARES about how that isn't the case, but the 
statement above is very clear.

This is a continuation of a trend across the country.  For example, Red Cross is 
quietly building its own ham radio communications capabilities independent of 
ARRL/ARES (regardless of the MOU between Red Cross and ARRL).  It is recruiting 
existing hams and training its own hams, all of whom will report directly to Red 
Cross.  A key element of the Red Cross doctrine is heavy use of digital 
communications capabilities as well as conformance with NIMS ICS standards 
rather than ARRL NTS standards.  

The same thing is happening with CERT organizations around the country.  They 
are looking to train their own hams so that they can manage and control their 
own communications.

Certain cities here in CT, along with CT DEMHS (Dept of Emergency Management and 
Homeland Security) have already taken local ham clubs under their own direct 
management rather than working through ARES -- something that has caused and is 
continuing to cause friction between ARRL/ARES and the clubs in question.  


2.  Northern FL adopts the NIMS message format

As also reported in that E-Letter, Northern Florida has adopted the NIMS ICS 
protocols.  Admittedly, they made a change to the ICS-213 form to add routing 
information (something everyone agreed the form needed), but what it really 
means is that they are no longer supporting the ARRL NTS message format.  

Reading further through Northern Florida's new doctrines, one sees a heavy 
emphasis on digital communications for logistics and health & welfare messages 
in the days following an emergency (as opposed to voice/CW NTS nets).  They 
expect that they will need to have voice capability for tactical response in the 
first few hours immediately after the event (e.g., hurricane), but they also 
recognize that after the first 12 hours or so they will be shifting their focus 
to digital communications from shelters, hospitals, etc.


***************

It's unfortunate that this is happening, but not surprising.  While some 
Sections and Districts have done a good job of evolving as the world evolves, 
too much of ARES has become hidebound with a world-view similar to that of 
pre-bankruptcy General Motors ("we wag the dog").  Here in CT, for example, ARES 
is still wedded to a statewide 75 meter voice net that doesn't cover significant 
chunks of the state (e.g., Stamford), is still wedded to voice/NTS (including 
the NTS Radiogram), and has not embraced digital communications.  CT ARES 
finally updated their "digital" web page -- meaning that they now list the 
packet stations currently available -- but there's no planning in the coverage, 
no interlocking coverage, no coordination between the towns/cities/regions, and 
certainly no doctrine on how/when to use it or training.

The problem goes right down to the individual Regions -- and this Region in 
particular.  Despite having about 40% of the state's total population, there is 
still no coordinated planning for Region 1.  For example, we have no ARES Region 
1 plan for communications between the three clubs, other than a designated VHF 
FM simplex frequency (and the simplex frequency chosen happens to be one that is 
not consistent with the bandplan for this area -- thus guaranteeing interference 
and poor communications).  There is no ARES Region 1 plan for communications 
between the cities/towns and the CT DEMHS Region 1 headquarters in Bridgeport, 
no coordination of activity in the SET, and no doctrine for how the individual 
clubs will support each other. 

***************

When it comes to EmComm, we in ham radio must adapt and evolve our skills.  We 
need to update our skills to those needed by emergency management.  Both ARRL 
and FEMA agree that digital will be the primary value that hams can bring in the 
aftermath of an emergency.  Last month SARA held a digital bootcamp and trained 
a couple of new digital operators.  Early next month we are going to have an 
NBEMS bootcamp so that we can learn how to use the capabilities of that system 
to pass messages (e.g., large volumes of H&W messages) and files (e.g., 
logistics, shelter population lists, compilations of storm damage).  We expect 
to do another digital bootcamp just after the start of the New Year, and those 
of us with digital experience (e.g., Tony, me) stand ready to provide individual 
assistance to anybody who asks.  I've said it before and I'm probably becoming a 
broken record on the subject, but we all need to learn how to do the basic 
soundcard digital modes and to get enough practice with them so that we can be 
called upon to use them in the aftermath of an emergency.  This applies to both 
Technician class operators as well as General+ operators -- much of our 
emergency digital communications would be conducted on VHF, which means that our 
Technician operators will have ample opportunity to participate.

And, as some of you have have already heard, while Region 1 ARES has made no 
effort to provide coordination, there have been discussions between between SARA 
and GBARC (as well as between SARA and WECA) to develop emergency communications 
protocols between the clubs.  Our discussions with GBARC have proceeded to the 
stage of testing various modes, frequencies, and antenna systems.  We hope to 
soon get to that stage with WECA, and we hope to extend our discussions to 
GNARC.

Jon
KB1QBZ