Each year, amateur radio operators in Hawaii participate in the annual Simulated Emergency Test or SET. The national organization ARRL sponsors it for the first Saturday in October. The exercise in 2015 will be conducted on Saturday, October 3, 2015 9:00 am - 12 noon HST. The scenario for 2015 is a tsunami exercise, simulating the arrival of destructive tsunami. In the meantime, this is net information from the 2012 SET exercise.
These are the arrangements underway within the amateur radio community in preparation for participating in the exercise. If you know of any, please contact Ron Hashiro, AH6RH
Enjoy, and feel free to drop me an e-mail if you have any questions.
Saturday, October 3, 2015 Net Timeline
The timeline for the net on Saturday, October 3, 2015 from 9:00 am to 12 noon is:
- 9:00 am, start of net. Announce net preamble, read SET Bulletin Alpha, take check-ins, start message handling. When checking in, please give (a) your location, (b) whether you are able to operate with emergency power, (c) served agencies that you are in contact with during the SET net and (d) whether you're newly licensed since 2011. The information is summarized and reported to ARRL at the conclusion of the exercise. See ARRL Field Service Form A for more details.
- After net check-ins, read SET Bulletin Bravo.
- 9:30 am, arrival of the simulated first tsunami at Kauai. Read SET Bulletin Charlie. Receive initial inundation and damage reports via tactical messaging.
- 9:40 am, arrival of the simulated first tsunami at Oahu. Read SET Bulletin Delta. Receive initial inundation and damage reports via tactical messaging.
- 9:50 am, arrival of the simulated first tsunami at Maui County Islands. Read SET Bulletin Echo. Receive initial inundation and damage reports via tactical messaging.
- 10:00 am, arrival of the simulated first tsunami at Big Island. Read SET Bulletin Foxtrot. Receive initial inundation and damage reports via tactical messaging.
- 10:10 am, Read SET Bulletin Golf. Receive damage reports and requests for assistance via ICS-213 messaging.
- 10:30 am, arrival of the simulated second tsunami, all islands. Read SET Bulletin Hotel. Receive initial inundation and damage reports and requests for assistance via tactical messaging and ICS-213.
- 10:50 am, simulated all clear on land. Read SET Bulletin India. Receive damage reports and requests for assistance via tactical and ICS-213 messaging.
- 11:45 am, prepare to close the net and pass reports. Report (a) the number of formal 3rd party written traffic messages originated or delivered during the SET on behalf of served agencies, (b) the number of minutes spent conducting TACTICAL communications on behalf of served agencies.
- 12 noon, close net
With the passing of the simulated tsunami waves, amateurs pass tactical messages reporting inundation and material damage reports. Tactical messaging gives the maximum amount of inundation reports in the shortest amount of time. BE SURE to BEGIN AND END each tactical message with "THIS IS AN EXERCISE MESSAGE".
Then after that, practice exchanging ICS-213 messages filing formal damage reports and requests for assistance. With two waves, that would provide two hours of generated traffic. BE SURE to BEGIN AND END each ICS-213 message with "THIS IS AN EXERCISE MESSAGE".
A MS Word version of the net preamble and bulletins is available.
A PDF version of the net preamble and bulletins is available.
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Hawaii EMA | 3993.5, 5330.5, 7088 | 147.06+ pl 103.5 | 444.35+ pl 103.5 |
Healthcomm | 3900,5371.5,7080 | 147.280+ | 443.775+ pl 123.0, 444.775+ pl 123.0 |
DEM | 7098, 7290 | 146.76-, 146.98- | 444.325+ pl 103.5, 444.35+ pl 103.5, 446.00 |
Hawaii County | BIWARN system
145.29- pl 100 Ocean View, 146.76- no pl tone Kulani Cone, 146.92- no pl tone Ka`u, 147.16+ pl 100 Kona, 147.32+ pl 100 Waimea, 442.50+ no pl tone Kea`au, 444.45+ pl 88.5 Waimea |
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Maui County | Repeater and SimplexFrequencies | ||
Kauai County | Simplex Frequencies | ||
APRS | 144.39 MHz |
Hawaii EMA RACES/ARES
SET 2015 - Hawaii EMA RACES/ARES participation.
Call signs:
HI-EMA - KH6HPZ
HI-EMA will be on the following frequencies at differing times:
147.060 - DH Repeater - Command/Control/Interisland Operations
444.350 - DH Repeater - Interagency Operations
Initial contact will be made on the 147.060 repeater. Stations will then be moved to another frequency, if possible, to handle traffic.
HF will also be used as follows to communicate with HI-EMA and to exercise NVIS.
HI-EMA will be on the HI-EMA interisland net, depending on propagation:
40m on 7088 kHz LSB (+/- qrm)
60m on 5330.5 kHz USB (+/- qrm)
80m on 3993.5 kHz LSB (if 40m is not open)
Messages will be exchanged in ICS-213 message format. A major part of this exercise is to gain experience in sending and receiving ICS-213 messages. Stations are encouraged to generate and send test messages for the exercise. All stations will use "THIS IS AN EXERCISE MESSAGE" at the beginning and end of all messages.
Net Schedule:
Saturday (10/5) @ 0900 - 1200 HST KH6HPZ
Oahu RACES
SET 2015 - Oahu DEM RACES participation.
DEM RACES is requesting members participate as individuals.
As a learning aid, Jeff AH6IX makes available an ICS-213 message generator which generates practice ICS-213 messages.
Kauai ARES/RACES
SET 2015 - Kauai ARES/RACES participation.
No information received at this time.
Maui ARES/RACES
SET 2015 - Maui ARES/RACES participation.
No information received at this time.
Hilo CERT/ARES/RACES
SET 2011 - Hilo CERT/ARES/RACES participation.
No information received at this time.
Healthcomm
SET 2015 - Healthcomm participation.
Healthcomm will be running its monthly net.
Digital Messaging Nets
For those working with digital messaging and developing nets to handle SET traffic in digital mode, please contact these points-of-contact to coordinate and develop the effort.
- Winlink
- Frequency: TBD
- POC: Harvey AH6JA
- POC: Kevin AH6QO
- FLDigi
- Frequency: TBD
- POC: Jeff AH6IX
- Download: FLDIGI page
- Olivia
- Frequency: TBD
- POC: Jack KH6DQ
- POC: Bart KH7C
- MT63
- Frequency: TBD
- POC: Jack KH6DQ
- POC: Bart KH7C
After the SET
An important post-SET activity is a critique session to discuss the test results. All ARES (and RACES) members should be invited to the meeting to review good points and weaknesses apparent in the drill. Emphasize ways to improve procedures, techniques, and coordination with all groups involved. Report your group's effort using the appropriate forms and include any photos, clippings and other items of interest.
Please send those SET reporting forms and photographs with captions and photo credit to your Section Emergency Coordinator, Section Manager, and/or Section Traffic Manager (for Net Manger SET reports) and to ARRL Headquarters via mailto:[email protected]. If you mail them to ARRL via the postal service, the address is: ARRL Headquarters, 225 Main Street, Newington, CT06111-1494. February 3, 2016, is the receipt deadline.
One of the first steps on the way to a successful SET is to try to get as many people involved as possible-- and especially new hams. In a real emergency, we find amateurs with all sorts of varied interests coming out of the woodwork. Let's get them involved in SET so they will know more about how emergency communications should be handled. Promote SET on nets and repeaters, and sign up new, enthusiastic radio amateurs. Many of those offering to help will be inexperienced in public-service activities.
It's up to you to explain what's going on to them, and provide them with useful roles. They may like it so much that they become a permanent fixture in your ARES or NTS group. For a review of last year's nationwide Simulated Emergency Test, read the article in July 2015, QST.
Thank you for your efforts!
From Ron Hashiro, AH6RH
SET is an ARRL-sponsored event that exercises the amateur radio community's ability to respond to emergency conditions. In a sense, it's like Field Day in that Field Day exercises the amateur radio community's ability to relocate operations from the home out to an outdoor setting. SET encourages amateur radio operators to send and receive messages with and on behalf of served agencies (agencies that hams partner with to provide communications services and manpower during times of emergencies) that simulate emergency-like scenarios. As in Field Day, not every ham can participate in the desired fashion (which is ok), so amateurs can still interact with field units from the home, mobile, EOCs, etc. Similarly for SET, every ham who is not at a served agency can participate from home or their current location by passing messages with content about simulated emergencies.
The interaction and participation of served agencies is encouraged. The relationship and level of activity/response for SET is a case-by-case situation between the served agency and the amateurs serving the agency. If representatives of the served agencies are present and able to generate the SET messages, that is the desired participation. If they are unable to participate, or are unable to generate the exercise messages ahead of time, then it is an opportunity lost. The amateurs would then for this exercise generate replacement messages on their behalf.
Notice that ARRL at the national level does not set the scenario, schedule and frequencies/nets used. That is determined by the ARRL field organization (ie, amateurs in the EC, DEC, SEC field organization - volunteer Emergency Coordinator, District Emergency Coordinator, Section Emergency Coordinator).
So the field organization of ARRL is making the event available in Hawaii. It's up to individual amateurs to engage and participate, and to encourage the served agencies to participate. Just as Field Day is "scored", SET is also scored. Look at Form A "EC Simulated Emergency Test Report", Form B "Net Manager Simulated Emergency Test Report" and Form C "EC Annual Report" on this web page. Please e-mail your SET summaries to ARRL Headquarters via [email protected]. If you mail them to ARRL via the postal service, the address is: ARRL Headquarters, 225 Main Street, Newington, CT 06111-1494. February 1, 2015, is the receipt deadline.
Traditionally, only about 25% of the amateur radio operators in Hawaii checking in on the general nets for SET are positioned at the served agencies. The remaining 75% are checking in from home and participating as individuals as opposed to checking in on behalf of served agencies. The analogy would be having Field Day, and 25% of the activity is from Field Day stations, and 75% is from hams at home. Typically for Field Day, 95+% of the activity from stations are from the Field Day sites as reported by the "nA" and "nB" class reports given by the stations. So, for SET, I'm expecting roughly 25% of the traffic to resemble served agency traffic, and 75% to be random SET traffic (messages exchanged) with the NCS generating low level query and response messages with individuals if the individuals generate the traffic.
Additional References
Additional information and educational material is available at:
- Standard Operating Procedure
- Common Hawaii frequencies
- The ICS-213 form for radio use
- How to pass messages using the ICS-213 form
- Net Control Station Log (NCS station) from Eric KH6CQ
- Field Station Event Log (non-NCS station) from Eric KH6CQ
- Actual operations during Hurricane Iniki
- Lessons learned
- Get SET for the 2012 Simulated Emergency Test
- Simulated EmergencyTest Guidelines
- Form A: EC Simulated Emergency Test Report
- Form B: NM Simulated Emergency Test Report
- ARRL Field Services Forms
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