[W8MWA] SIMULATED EMERGENCY TEST (ARRL SET)

[Jim Seckel]

Monongalia County ARES would like to participate in this year's SET which they have scheduled for October 3 and 4, 2026.  This is a test of our capabilities to support our local, state and federal affiliated emergency agencies and to note any shortcomings.  We will be supporting the American Red Cross in this evolution and will make it a one day event.  Since it does NOT have to coincide on the selected weekend, we may select another day (but we are leaning to a Sunday).  A committee has been set to lay the groundwork for the scenario and time.  Note that the personnel for each position away from the ARC office will actually travel to and communicate at the designated site.  The scenario will be issued the day of the evolution.

We invite ALL amateur radio operators to participate, even outside the county as we will be passing some traffic by voice and digitally using MT 63 (download FLDIGI program) on HF and VHF.  Digital traffic will be done acoustically using the speaker and mic on your radio and computer (no sound card needed).  We will experiment with grasswire antenna (insulated EF wire on the ground) which has been shown to work and is used by various emergency groups for short range communications.  Note that the output is approx 10 dB lower but is fairly quiet on receive.  I hope to have a complete working system for the next MWA meeting (Tuesday, Sept 15 at 7pm, American Red Cross, White Birch Tower).

For MT 63 download the FLDIGI program.  There are downloads for linux and windows; try sourceforge.net and w1hkj.org has all you need.  If you want to run android, use andflmsg from sourceforge.net.

Also would like to have some ARRL message forms used.  There are fillable forms available on line, e.g. nts2.arrl.org.

For the grasswire antenna, search by its name; there are short articles and hints for deployment under several people (f5ad.free.fr and hamradiooutsidethebox.ca in particular).

Let's experiment and have fun.

Please let me know if you would like to participate!!!  Will keep you posted.


73 de Jim
KC8YUI