[KL7AA] Military Auxiliary Radio Service (MARS) DOD Exercise 8-10 Nov

[kl7yk]

  DOD COMEX 15-4 8-10 Nov

My name is Ron Keech and I am the State Director of Army MARS Alaska. As 
such I represent the Army Military Auxiliary Radio Service or AMARS in 
Alaska. There are currently only ten MARS Operators in the state. In the 
lower 48 there are thousands. So its very important to have MARS and 
Amateur Radio work together in Alaska since its a very large geographic 
area separated from the rest of the country.  To that end the Quarterly 
DOD Communications Exercises are directing that we include Amateur Radio.

*When? *Starting Sunday the 8th MARS members will start being tasked to 
provide status updates back to DOD.  Starting about 1pm Sunday Alaska 
Time you may hear some chatter on air between a couple of Hams 
discussing the exercise and or updates to the resources in the areas 
they are in. That could be on VHF or HF.  The drill runs until 3pm Tuesday.

*Goal of the Communications Exercise or COMEX*- For our purposes its to 
have MARS and Amateur Radio interface for the mutual training of the 
operators. To draw on Amateur Radio for the collection of data regarding 
the status of critical resources in a community.

*How?* Using radio, MARS Operators wearing their Amateur Hats and 
operating as Amateurs will contact Alaskan Hams for the status of 
critical resources after a simulated disaster. If those Hams are in ARES 
or RACES great! They will bring a degree of formal emergency 
communications training and experience to the process. If they are not 
part of ARES or RACES that's OK too as they will get their feet wet in 
the EMCOM world.

MARS Operators will be seeking the status of Transportation, Medical, 
Communications, Power, Sanitation and Water. MARS Stations will then be 
submitting a report through military channels so federal emergency 
planners can get a quick and dirty update on the availability of those 
resources. I ask that should you decide to help out you report real 
world status please no exercise simulated damage or some such.  We just 
need to be able to establish contact with Hams and gather up the status 
of that Borough or community.

MARS is basically collecting a snapshot of data in an given area, they 
are not directly interfacing with the State or City/Counties. That is 
the ARES Job.

Since MARS is trained to work with the federal agencies not the 
state/city level authorities we cannot be expected to do what ARES does. 
Nor should ARES ever be expected to do what MARS does. Same job but 
different bosses.

ARES is a local resource for the city and state emergency managers. MARS 
is a federal level resource, we each have specific jobs, but they are 
not the same jobs.

For this exercise anyway there is not going to be much in the way of 
civil authority involvement. Alaska simply is coming late to the party. 
The lower 48 has been working this concept since last October.

MARS has a specific scope of information to gather from Hams, if your 
asked on air to assist your help would be appreciated. A station in the 
local area, a ham station will identify them selves as a MARS Station 
working an Exercise. They will ask for any information about the status 
of resources for that area on the air.

You need not do anything special, if you want to be involved just turn 
on a radio to the local VHF frequencies or listen to the ARES HF 
frequencies. For the Anchorage area listen for an fellow amateur asking 
for help in a MARS Exercise. Local repeaters -147.33 and 146.67 will be 
used and on Simplex there should be someone listening on 146.52 in the 
Anchorage area.

You do not need to be an ARES Member to participate in this drill. As 
Amateurs your considered a trusted source, you live in the community 
after all.  Since the exercise says we cannot use phones or the internet 
Radio is the main way to get the word out.  Due to the sheer size of 
Alaska we have boroughs with few if any Hams living in them. So its 
important to be able to hear from the remote areas as well. This type of 
interaction will not only promote cooperation between Hams and MARS. It 
will provide a measure of training and experience that will be very 
valuable in the future.

For those areas away from the big population centers do not be surprised 
to hear a station before or after Snipers, Bush or Motley Nets looking 
for some exercise input on Sunday evening and perhaps on Monday evening.

If you have questions on the MARS contact me at kl7yk at kl7yk.us  There is 
a website as well at http://akarmymars.net