[HIham] Hawaii Simulated Emergency Test, October 1, 2005 9:00 - 11:00 am

[Ron Hashiro]

ARES and RACES in Hawaii will participate in the annual ARRL Simulated 
Emergency Test (SET) on Saturday, October 1.  The purpose of the SET is 
to help amateur radio operators gain valuable experience in emergency or 
disaster communications procedures for our served agencies.  Your 
cooperation and assistance in this exercise will prove to be very 
beneficial to all parties involved in emergency preparedness 
operations.  The ARRL Simulated Emergency Test is an annual event 
conducted between the months of October and November by radio amateurs 
throughout the United States.

This year's scenario involves recovery communications from a simulated 
hurricane that has affected all major Hawaiian Islands.

A disaster scenario will originate from State Civil Defense (SCD), 
Emergency Operations Center (EOC) on Oahu for the exercise.  The 
scenario will cover all area of Hawaii with a (simulated) developing 
natural disaster.  The announcement will be transmitted on amateur radio 
frequencies as part of the SET preamble to begin the test.  
Participation by as many amateur radio operators, government and public 
service disaster relief agencies as possible will make this test more 
realistic and meaningful.

Additional information on the event and scoring can be found at the ARRL 
website.   http://arrl.org/field/setguide.html
http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/forms/ec_set.pdf

SIMULATED EMERGENCY TEST SCHEDULE

Begin: 0900 hours, Saturday, October 1, 2005
Terminate:  1100 hours, Saturday, October 1, 2005

STATE-WIDE RADIO FREQUENCIES for the SET:

VHF (2-meter) frequencies:

Kauai - 147.040+ mhz
Oahu - 147.060+ mhz
Maui - 147.020+ mhz
BI/East Hawaii - 147.040+ mhz
BI/West Hawaii - 147.020+ mhz


HF (40/80 meter) frequencies:

Primary:  40 meters - 7.088 mhz ± QRM
Secondary:  80 meters - 3.993 mhz ± QRM  (This frequency will be used 
only if 7.088 mhz is not usable in the morning hours).

Other voice, psk and packet frequencies and operation modes may be used 
for local SET communications.  Please coordinate these frequencies/modes 
with your local ARES/RACES groups.

As part of the check-in and scoring for the net, please advise net control:
*  Whether you are checking-in on emergency power
*  Whether you are licensed since 2002.


NET CONTROL STATION (NCS):

KH6HPZ - State Civil Defense EOC, Diamond Head Crater.



KH6HPZ will act as NCS and broadcast a simulated disaster scenario and 
begin the SET at 0800 hours on the state-wide RACES linked repeater 
frequencies and on HF frequencies.  Roll call will follow the preamble.  
NCS will transmit SET updates and may receive and transmit and/or 
forward simulated emergency traffic throughout the exercise.  IMPORTANT: 
NCS will operate on SET frequencies as a directed net.  Therefore, 
stations should not transmit to other stations unless directed to do so 
by NCS.



ALL MESSAGES generated on amateur radio frequencies for the SET shall 
use standard ARRL message format.  Messages must be designated as:  
"TEST EMERGENCY"  or "TEST MESSAGE".  Please do not fail to use the word 
"TEST" in your messages.


ARES DISTRICT and LOCAL EMERGENCY COORDINATORS and RACES GROUPS:

Please involve as many of your local public service disaster relief 
agencies as possible in this exercise.    In a real emergency, you may 
only have a few days or just hours to prepare for emergency and/or 
disaster communications.  Please underscore this clearly when 
coordinating this year's SET activities with your amateur radio 
volunteers and agency participants.

Organize your volunteers to set-up and operate 2-meter equipment and 
NVIS portable HF transceivers at a participating (government or 
non-profit) agency site(s).  During the SET, use the portable stations 
to communicate simulated emergency traffic, logistical and/or tactical 
messages on behalf of the participating agency to other participating 
agencies, and/or to the EOC.  Use standard ARRL message format when 
transmitting and copying messages.  Throughout the exercise, demonstrate 
to the participating agency members the effectiveness of amateur radio 
communications during an emergency.  At the end of the exercise, conduct 
a post-exercise meeting with your volunteers to evaluate the 
effectiveness of your SET activities as well as your interaction with 
the participating agency(s) during the exercise.  Follow the 
instructions to complete and email the EC SET report form to the ARRL.  
You can find the form at:  http://arrl.org/field/forms/index.html#ec_set

Have fun, and good luck to you all!