[KYHAM] KEN TRAINING JANUARY 05

[Ron Dodson]

Ky Emeergency Net Training for December of 2004 consisted of my offering 
all ARES and EMCOMM Op’s a chance to review a document from our Canadian 
neighbors entitled, “LESSONS NOT LEARNED AREAS FOR AR IMPROVEMENT - A 
PRESENTATION TO COMMUNICATIONS ACADEMY 2004 SHORELINE, WASHINGTON MARCH 
21, 2004” written by: TOM COX, VE7TOX.

Many of you e-mailed back comments which were appreciated. For January 
2005, I will follow up on this document with some thoughts from our Ky 
ARES and other EMCOMM reads of this as well as thoughts of my own 
regarding issues that WE IN KENTUCKY can address and become better 
communicators in adopting.

ISSUE # 1 - After Action Critique
VE7TOX wrote - “Therefore, though there is sufficient Canadian 
experience and research to show how individuals, groups and 
organizations deal with disaster – and to predict future behaviour – and 
though these lessons are well documented and clear, they are often not 
applied. Even though the future threatens to bring more serious 
incidents, the evidence is that we will not be better prepared.” Joe 
Scanlon, Lessons Learned or Lessons Forgotten: The Canadian Disaster 
Experience AR is not the only group to ignore the lessons of disasters. 
There is a recognition that people don’t learn. Even when presented with 
the information, in the clearest possible terms, that things didn’t 
work, people persist in doing the same thing next time. There are a 
number of reasons for this, but whatever the reason, it is a given.”

- Kentucky has this same problem and as is pointed out here, it is NOT 
ONLY AMATEUR RADIO OPERATORS WHO SUFFER FROM THIS SELECTIVE AMNESIA! 
Think of how many times we see history repeat itself as we continue to 
make the same mistake or fail to plan appropriately over and over again. 
If we do nothing else, we must learn to tackle this issue as a priority. 
One main item to help us do this is to be honest with ourselves. While a 
new release or press interview does not need to address what or WHO 
screwed up, internally, among ourselves we need to take a real hard look 
at resolving those issues which did not come out to the optimum in 
efficiency. Instead of telling ourselves that we did the best we could, 
let’s say OK, we need to fix this for next time and really FIX IT. Ky 
amateur radio operators need to adopt the philosophy of doing after 
action reports which tell the true facts for use inside our 
organizations for real lessons learned. I realize that many still use 
the, “But I am a volunteer!” crutch. Volunteer or paid, you can be 
either professional or unprofessional in your operations. If we will 
just examine the events as they went and figure out why this or that did 
not work out as well as it could have, we’ll be ahead of the curve and 
can hopefully put that error in the past for good.

– ISSUE #2 - "Qualified" Emergency Communicators
– VE7TOX wrote: “There is an attitude within AR that being able to 
contest or teach a course makes you an excellent emergency communicator. 
This is no truer than saying that someone who is a good emergency 
communicator can build a rig or a good contester can teach a basic 
class. We aren’t all good at everything.”

- I agree whole-heartedly with this statement. The only way to be good 
at anything is to do it regularly. As disasters do not occur on a set 
schedule we are left with the experiences gained in training and 
exercising between real events. Whenever a disaster happens out of the 
woodwork come hams you never knew existed wanting to help out. Are they 
going to really help or make a mess of things? No one knows because 
these hams are an unknown quantity. Hams who want to help NEED TO GET 
INVOLVED NOW, even if it is on a limited basis because of family, jobs 
or what have you. Much of the “Out of Town” quotient can be covered by 
one of two things, Imports of amateurs from neighboring or other area 
ARES/MARS or RACES programs can give you a sense that these people have 
a ticket on the clue bus. Out of state amateurs really need to 
coordinate through state EMA organizations before going on a response. I 
know we had this issue back in the hurricanes of 2004 when someone would 
post a query for help on a listserv of message board and all od a sudden 
there is a surge of volunteers with the best of intentions putting their 
own livelihoods at risk to go without official backing. If KyEM sends 
you as a part of an EMAC request, you have workman’s comp in the event 
you get injured. If you go it alone, YOU are betting that the disaster 
won’t claim you (and your family’s welfare) as a victim.

ISSUE #3 - OVERSELLING and Extra Help
VE7TOX wrote: “We keep on saying “We’ll be there in an emergency” but in 
a disaster, when they require hundreds of individuals (for one shift!), 
all of a sudden, we’ve written a cheque we can’t cash. We undersell 
ourselves as to what we can do to help them, then when the public 
officials finally see the light and the advantages of AR, we oversell 
them on everything we can do. They are not going to call us until 
EVERYTHING is breaking down, and then we surprise them by telling them 
we can only cover ten or twelve locations at best.

- I hope that in Kentucky we have held this to a minimum. Never oversell 
your ability. Granted we need to re-evaluate our keeping the surrounding 
areas and section informed on anticipated staffing needs. We do have a 
finite amount of volunteers out there and we don’t want to burn anyone 
out. If you are looking at a long term need for hams, let’s start 
planning early to meet those needs. As the man said, you may end up on 
short notice, but making arrangements well ahead of the actual time of a 
disaster with neighbor counties or even areas is an option we need to 
start making more use of in times to come.

ISSUE #4 - INCICDNET LOGGING

VE7TOX wrote: “HF operators might be slightly better than the VHF/UHF 
gang at logging time / content / contact of all calls, but generally we 
don’t normally keep a log of what we are doing, how we are doing it and 
what’s going wrong. The need for information after a disaster is huge. 
The need for accurate information is even bigger. And the need for 
honest, “warts-and-all” logs is the only way we are going to improve 
what we do during a disaster. But amateur radio doesn’t even put our 
Field Day summary out, and event reports are rare. If we aren’t even 
putting summaries out, how are we going to get the detail that comes 
from having every individual complete and submit a personal log?”

- Even your SEC needs more practice here. None of us did a great job in 
logging the op’s during the New Madrid EQ simulation last March. (BTW, I 
have learned that there is an exercise being developed with CUSEC for 
2007. If your county and Area EMA’s ask for input, be ready to jump 
onboard!).

ISSUE #5 INCIDENT COMMAND SYSTEM

– By October of 2006 all federal, state and local entities and agencies 
must adopt the new National Incident Management System or NIMS. Failure 
to do so will make jurisdictions ineligible for ANY federal funding or 
grants after that date. There is a committee in Frankfort looking at how 
we will all have to come into compliance with this mandate. More on this 
later!

ISSUE #6
VE7TOX wrote: “What is almost humorous is that given that communications 
fails, we tell amateur radio operators not to respond unless called. “We 
don’t want hams self responding” and “don’t get on the air unless 
asked”. How are public officials going to ask when the communications 
are down?

What we should be saying is “Due to the nature of communications 
failure, if you think there is a disaster, you should immediately begin 
operations until it is proven that communications is working – at which 
point they will communicate to us that we are not needed.”

- Any time you feel that there may be a need for emergency 
communications support, ALL amateurs should self activate to the point 
of tuning to local emergency frequencies and nets and if possible to the 
KEN frequencies (3.993.5 during hours of darkness and 7.228 MHz. during 
daylight) to see if an activation is called for. Local EC’s either 
should contact their served agency’s primary points of contact or have a 
designated person who knows that they are responsible to do this by 
whatever means are authorized by that agency.

ISSUE # 7 - Initial Damage Assessment

VE7TYOX wrote: “…This (Initial damage assessment) is an area where 
amateur radio has huge capability, but this capability is not planned 
for. We have multiple operators dispersed over a wide area with instant 
communications ability. It is equally important to know what areas are 
not affected as to know what areas are affected.

- No argument there. HOWEVER, this is an issue in the hands of local 
EMA’s and other authorities. Discuss this with those leaders ahead of 
time and do as instructed to either prepare to assist or to stand aside 
at their discretion.



While there are many more issues in the document that are important, 
these were some key issues I felt useful to us in Ky. If wee can just 
get in the habit of doing honest critiques after operations in 
emergencies and public service events looking for problems and 
shortfalls and real solutions, we will be the better for it. In the 
months ahead many more things will be coming into play that will 
strengthen and beneefit our program if everyone will do their part and 
help with the transitions.

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As I mentioned, NIMS is coming, like it or not. As the info flows down 
from the state elevel, you will be kept advised. Likewise the 2007 CUSEC 
New Madrid Earthquake exercise which will invole all eight CUSUEC states 
and not just Ky (as in March 2004) in a large scale event. . I have 
begun talking with other amateur radio emergency groups to try to begin 
tying ARES/RACES and MARS into a more cohesive form for large scale op's.