[W1SMH] Fwd: The ARES E-Letter for September 16, 2015

[RayCord]

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On Wednesday, September 16, 2015, ARRL Web site <memberlist at www.arrl.org> wrote:

If you are having trouble reading this message, you can see the original at:
http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/ares-el/?issue=2015-09-16



September 16, 2015       Editor: Rick Palm, K1CE
ARES E-Letter Archive ARES Home ARRL Home Page 

 

Second Annual Joint Tribal Emergency Management Conference Held in Pacific Northwest
SimCom 2015: Wisconsin Hosts Major Interoperability Exercise
ARES Supports Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon
Why Public Service-Oriented Hams Should Participate in Contests
First AuxComm Course Held in Arizona
Make an Emergency Communication Plan
ARES Briefs, Links

Participants at Oklahoma Conference Get "Healthy Exposure" to Amateur Radio (9/03/15); Amateur Radio Volunteers Face Fire Threat While Supporting Emergency Communication (8/27/2015); Amateur Radio Volunteers Support Michigan's Premier Bicycle Tour (7/22/2015).

Second Annual Joint Tribal Emergency Management Conference Held in Pacific Northwest
For the second year in a row, ARES/RACES was a featured part of the largest gathering of tribal disaster preparedness, recovery, hazard mitigation, and homeland security professionals in the country on August 12-14 at the Northern Quest Resort (owned by the Kalispel Tribe) in Airway Heights, Washington. The conference was organized by the National Tribal Emergency Management Council in conjunction with the Northwest Tribal Emergency Management Council.

As part of the pre-conference activities on Monday and Tuesday, Sam Jenkins, WA7EC, taught a Technician license class, and Jack Tiley, AD7FO, and Bob Peterson, KE7RAP, taught a General license class. Mary Qualtieri, AA7RT, coordinated the VE team on Tuesday. Newly licensed amateurs included Cal Bray, KG7VQF, Emergency Manager for the Chehalis Tribe, and Rita Mooney, KG5JAT, with the Texas Department of Public Safety.

On Wednesday, Ken Murphy, KE7TIW, Administrator of the DHS Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, addressed the conference's main assembly; Sundown Campbell, KG7PWD, CERT Coordinator for the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, gave a "Tribal CERT" presentation; Steve Aberle, WA7PTM, gave a "An Amateur Radio Station for Your Tribe: Why HF/VHF/UHF Radios Are All Vital" talk; and Richard Broncheau, KG7NRJ, of the Nez Perce Tribe, gave a presentation on tribal outreach related to FirstNet, The First Responder Network Authority.

Elisa Roper, KM4BUG, Tribal Liaison with FEMA Region IV, did presentations on both Wednesday and Thursday on CAMEO, a free suite of software applications used to plan for and respond to chemical emergencies.

On Thursday, C. Gary Rogers, KO3F, Director of the FEMA Preparedness Grants Division, and Vernon Preston, KC7FFI, of the National Weather Service in Pocatello, Idaho, each addressed the conference's main assembly; Monte Simpson, AF7PQ, the Washington State RACES Officer and Section Manager for Western Washington, gave a "RACES Support for Cascadia Rising" presentation; and Nathan Nixon, N7NAN, gave a talk on NTARA, the National Tribal Amateur Radio Association.

The ARRL table in the vendor area was staffed by Monte Simpson, AF7PQ, Steve Aberle, WA7PTM, Nathan Nixon, N7NAN, and Sue Aberle, WB7OSC. Members of many of the tribes stopped by to chat about building a stronger Amateur Radio presence within their tribes, both as part of their emergency/disaster preparedness plans as well as a way to bring their communities together. -- Steve Aberle, WA7PTM, Assistant State RACES Officer (Tribal Liaison), Washington State

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SimCom 2015: Wisconsin Hosts Major Interoperability Exercise
Winnebago (Wisconsin) County Emergency Management in conjunction with Wisconsin Emergency Management and the Wisconsin National Guard - Joint Operations Center, invited agencies to attend SimCom-Vital Communications 2015 at the Sunnyview Expo Center in Oshkosh, Wisconsin last May for three days of exercises. It provided an opportunity to educate, coordinate and test mobile emergency communications platform assets from federal, state, tribal and local jurisdictions. ARES/RACES organizations were on board.

The exercise focused on strenuous testing of voice and data communication capabilities during field operations. Exercise planners developed a challenging series of inject messages that were sent to exercise participants by an expanded simulation cell (SimCell) center to provide exercise participants with a true test of interoperable communications ability. While this year's focus was on strenuous operational communications testing, there was also the opportunity to meet with other emergency communications professionals and ARES/RACES volunteers from around the region and the state for networking and getting to know each other.

Objectives included geographic Divisions' data sharing, radio bridging/patching, fixing net failures, contingency communications, establishing an incident Communications Center and repeaters in each geographic area, HF/VHF/UHF operation, and interoperable communications between all participants and zones.

__________

[Emma Schaefer, KC9YGJ, of Winnebago County ARES/RACES wrote the following article on her experiences at the exercise. -- ed.]

I attended Simulated Communications, Vital Connections 2015 (SimCom 2015) this past May in Wisconsin, my home state. Hosted by Winnebago County, the three day program had participants from ARES, the Army National Guard and Air National Guard, Air Force, police, firefighters, Wisconsin Emergency Management, Department of Justice, and FEMA.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to sit down with Mark Jensen, a joint interoperability communications planner with the U.S. Northern Command. Northern Command was created after September 11, 2001 for managing homeland defense and security. "The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war," claimed Jensen, who supports their goal of promoting opportunity for radio interoperability. Believing that the importance of the event is to promote an environment in which military, civilian, and federal agencies work together, providing support during the exercise and during a disaster scenario is simpler with local, county, state and federal agencies present. "SimCom is a chance for all groups of government and private organizations to see how they can mutually communicate during a crisis," said Jensen. "It's a great gathering to focus entirely on communications in the event of a disaster."

Day One: Training and Education

In the early years of this event, communication of situational awareness between platforms and divisions had been a huge issue. Now, for communications and tactical information updates everyone can access, SimCom participants used E-Sponder, a website that works like a live blog. Users can post pictures, videos, documents, and comments. During SimCom, it was used primarily as an event log. Catherine Rhyner, an E-Sponder expert, set up a site and held a training course for event participants. "[E-Sponder is critical] to building connections between all of the independent agencies in the state and to help them discover where to improve their communications," said Rhyner. "It allowed everybody to be aware of what's happening during the exercise." E-Sponder helped to improve the organization and structure of the event, which improved communication and allowed for new injects into the exercise that had not been practiced before.

In addition to Rhyner's E-Sponder course, other classes were offered for military and civilian units, including training on Homeland Security's NIFOG (National Interoperability Field Operations Guide), a presentation by EF Johnson, and Raytheon's ACU (IP-based interoperability gateway) Technician course. Thanks to these successful training sessions, the event was able to flow much better than in years past, and communications were much more efficient.

Day Two: Primary Exercise

May 6th, the day following the training courses, marked the beginning of the primary exercise, which was scripted with an MSEL (Master Scenario Events List) to plan out events. "All communications are critical for success," said Allen Nielson, a soldier with the Wisconsin Army/National Guard. The MSEL is created to test out the communication capabilities of each platform and division, while at the same time actually knowing where each platform is with meeting its objectives.

The exercise was divided into different divisions and platforms.

Platforms in Division A were:

● Dodge County EM Mobile Command Center

● DOC Communications Trailer

● 115th Fighter Wing [Air National Guard]

● 914th Communications Squadron [Joint Interoperability Site Communications Capability]

● Lincoln County ARES/RACES

● Waupaca County Mobile Command

Division B included:

● Oshkosh Police Mobile Command

● FEMA Forward Communications Vehicle

● Jefferson County ARES/RACES

● Pierce County Sheriff Mobile Command

● Waukesha County Incident Command Post

● Winnebago County EM Command Center

Division C's platforms were:

● Ozaukee County Incident Command Post

● Civil Air Patrol Mobile Command Post

● Fond Du Lac ARES

● Milwaukee Fire Department Incident Command Post

● Shawano, Menominee and Marathon County Mobile Command

Division D's platforms included:

● Beloit Police Emergency Services Unit

● 54th Civil Support Team--Weapons of Mass Destruction

● Outagamie County ARES/RACES

● Walworth County Sheriff Mobile Emergency Response Vehicle

● Walworth County Sheriff ARES Communications Trailer

● Wisconsin National Guard Situational Assessment Team

There were also several platforms that were cross-divisional, including the Illinois Air National Guard Mobile Emergency Operations Center (MEOC), the Michigan Air National Guard MEOC, Army National Guard's Army Aviation Support Facilities (AASF) and Wisconsin Command (WISCOM) Site on Wheels (SOW).

"The whole purpo