ARES Forum. 11:00 AM ARRL Midwest Convention August 4 th, 2018

Transcription

1 ARES Forum 11:00 AM ARRL Midwest Convention August 4 th, 2018

2 ARES Forum Welcome to all! I m Rich Bingham, WW0Q, Iowa Section EC. Assisted by Scott Haney, N0GUD, Iowa ARES District 6 DEC.

3 Agenda: Interoperability DMR and ARES Agenda (0f Sorts) 5.3 MHz Band (aka, 60-meter) Latest on the ARES Strategic Plan Q & A Session time permitting

4 Interoperability Interoperability can have a variety of meanings: Between Counties Between Districts Between Sections Between Amateur Radio groups and other participating organizations, such as National Guard, etc.

5 So When The Graphic deleted for copyright reasons.

6 Who Ya Gonna Call? ARES disaster response is typically thought of as being at the County level (or whatever the lowest level in your Section is). For most events/incidents, this will probably be sufficient. But what happens when the scope of the incident grows beyond that lowest level of response say one that encompasses multiple counties, or an entire district (or into an adjacent districts, or even multiple Sections)?

7 Large Scale Incidents Such a large scale incident might be the result of major floods 1993 and 2008 come to mind as examples, as well as other large scale events (such as New Madrid?). Have you incorporated planning for a large scale event in your County s, District s or Section s Emergency Ops Plan? If you haven t yet done so, there is no time like the present to begin thinking in those terms.

8 Things To Consider (County Level) What means would you need to use to reach every county within a district? Repeaters (sometimes VHF simplex) are usually a first choice for local and adjacent county coms. But what about counties that are located on opposite ends of a district that might be out of normal simplex and/or repeater range? Have you considered alternative means should your preferred primary means be unavailable due to loss of critical infrastructure? (land-line, cell phone, courier, carrier pigeon?)

9 More County Things Do your county ECs have contact info for the other ECs in their District as well as their DEC? If not, then this is a good time to get that info to them. Trying to find that info under fire is not the best approach. Do test your plans.

10 District Things Moving up to the district level: what about between adjacent districts? Repeaters (widearea or linked repeaters may be an option), but not always. Fall back to HF? Non-adjacent districts? Usually HF comes to mind here as a viable alternative owing to distance, but it s possible that other means may need to be considered as well. Do District ECs have contact info for the DEC in adjacent Districts?

11 More District Things If not, they probably should have that info to facilitate reaching their counter-parts. Again, trying to find that info under fire is not the best approach. Have you tested these plans?

12 Section Things To this point we have considered interoperable coms between counties and districts. Moving up to Sections: we are talking about significantly larger distances here not to mention crossing lines of authority, ie, the political element. SECs: Do you have the contact info for your counterpart in your adjacent Sections? Needless to say, finding out whether your plans work (or don t, as the case may be) under fire, is not the best approach. As said before, test your plans.

13 Still More Things Thus far we ve been thinking in terms of purely ARES responses to a large scale incident. But what about coms with other groups, such as MARS or the National Guard? Here things can become more complex owing to organizational protocols and procedures. Might involve possible interoperable coms using 5.3 MHz (more on this later). Test your plans when the opportunity presents itself such as Operation Stable Mercury and the Ohio Section s Operation Black Swan.

14 DMR and ARES Technology continues to evolve. A recent technological addition to our arsenal has been the introduction of DMR (Digital Mobile Radio) technology into Amateur Radio. Many of us are relatively new to DMR. So to help us understand this new computer based digital radio technology, consider the following as an aid to help achieve that understanding

15 Graphic deleted for copyright reasons.

16 More DMR Have you incorporated DMR technology in your County, District or Section s planning? This is a good time to do so. But, as with any new technology, there are some considerations (caveats?) to keep in mind. Consider the following:

17 Still More DMR Graphic deleted for copyright reasons.

18 More DMR Yes, the elephant in the room here is the reliance on a working internet backbone, a potential single point of failure. While DMR brings some really useful technological advantages, it is important to keep its limitations in mind as well. Still, with the effective implementation and use of Talk Groups, DMR can be another useful tool in our toolbox. The Iowa Section is currently working on a major deployment of this new technology.

19 5.3 MHz Band (aka, 60-meters) What is your Section doing with DMR? 5.3 MHz is an unusual allocation as far as the Amateur Radio service is concerned. First, it is our only channelized band. Second, it comes with some interesting limitations USB voice requirement and output power limitations to start with. Lastly, we are <secondary> on this band.

20 More 5.3 MHz This means we <share> the allocation with other users who are <primary>. The intent for the creation of this allocation was to provide a common set of frequencies (channels) for the Amateur Radio service and other (governmental-type) users to share to facilitate inter-operable communications.

21 More 5.3 MHz For USB Voice: Xcvr displayed freq: FCC Channel Center: CH-1: CH-2: CH-3: CH-4: CH-5: Note: dial displays 1.5 KHz <below> FCC channel center frequency for SSB voice.

22 More 5.3 MHz 60-Meter Digital (& CW): Channel 1: khz Channel 2: khz Channel 3: khz Channel 4: khz Channel 5: khz Note: Dial frequency and FCC Channel Center Frequency are the same in this instance.

23 More On 5.3 MHz Other users can include but are not limited to National Guard, SHARES(?), other governmental organizations. These groups (obviously) will <not> be using call-signs that are familiar to us. Unfortunately this has also led to some issues with some Amateur Radio operators failing to understand our secondary status on this allocation.

24 More 5.3 MHz Best advice for 5.3 MHz: if you are not involved with an event or incident that requires coms with non-amateur Radio organizations and encounter a non-ham callsign on the band, move on to another channel. Remember these groups are primary on the band and have first call on the frequency.

25 ARES Strategic Plan NOTE: Between the Midwest Convention and this update, additional information became available concerning the Board of Director s Meeting and the ARRL ARES Strategic Plan. The latest information is that the BOD did <not> vote on the plan. That vote will take place (as of right now) at the January 2019 BOD meeting. Comment period remains the same as originally announced.

26 ARES Strategic Plan By now, most all of us have heard about the new ARES Strategic Plan that has been under development by the PSWEG for some time. As you may also be aware, the ARRL Board of Directors recently considered the new plan at their most recent meeting. My understanding is that preliminary approval was given by the BOD, but with a period of time set aside for comments (60-days). Whether this means revisions to the plan based on comments received is unclear at the moment.

27 More ARES Strategic Plan If/when final approval is given, then the proposed start date for the new ARES structure would be 1 January A number of features are included in the Strategic Plan including the new ARES Connect program. For County ECs: if you haven t obtained your ARES Connect ID, you need to do so. DECs and SECs (and assistants to same) are not yet being included in this initial rollout.

28 More Strategic Plan A major and important component of the new ARES Plan has to do with training. The new plan envisions three levels of training described in a highly condensed form below: Level I: intended for those that are new to Amateur Radio or emergency communications. Introductory training conducted by the local ARES group to meet their needs and those of the served agencies and/or partners. An orientation level, if you will

29 More Strategic Plan Level II: to meet this level, a participant will have completed the ARRL EC-001 course (or current equivalent) and FEMA IS-100, IS-200, IS-700, and IS-800. Additional training is encouraged to enhance the participant s knowledge and skill set.

30 More Strategic Plan Level III: intended to prepare ARES participants for leadership positions such as: EC, ADEC, DEC, ASEC, and SEC. In addition to the training requirements for Level II, participants need to complete ARRL EC-016 and FEMA IS-300 and IS-400. Additionally, participants are encouraged to complete the FEMA Leadership development courses of IS-120, IS-230, IS-240, IS-241, IS-242, IS-244, and IS-288.

31 More Strategic Plan It is also proposed that individuals currently in leadership positions will have one year to complete the necessary training for Level III. All of the IS courses are available on-line and are free. Exception: IS-300 and IS-400 are multi-day classroom courses and not available on line. Where the local community may have limited classroom study programs for IS-300 and IS-400, the SM/SEC may grant additional completion time to accommodate a training schedule or authorize the seven FEMA Leadership Development Courses as an alternate study program.

32 Q & A Session