Ron Hashiro

The timeline for the net on Saturday, May 28, 2011 from 9:00 am to 12 noon is:

• 9:00 am, start the net. Announce net preamble, take check-ins, start message handling
• 10:15 am, simulated 50 mph winds arrive on Oahu. HF antennas on towers fail. (Loss of much HF communications on Oahu) Loss of commercial power. Loss of inter-island links on SCD VHF repeater system. SCD VHF repeaters go into stand-alone mode.
• 10:30 am, simulated Category 1 winds arrive on Oahu. Progressive loss of Oahu repeaters due to antenna damage. Mobile operators forced to cease operations due to flying debris. Only hurricane-rated repeaters remain on the air. Operators next to glass windows forced to withdraw to safer interior rooms. (If you're in a concrete building, move to an interior room and test simplex operations.)
• 11:00 am, simulated landfall
• 11:30 am, first eyewall passes. Initial field damage assessment possible
• 11:50 am, second eyewall passes. Advise all persons to simulate going back to interior rooms.
• 11:55 am, Reenable SCD VHF repeater links in preparation for winding down net. Reenable 146.88 MHz repeater. Announce final statistics (if available)
• 12 noon, close the net

A MS Word version of the net preamble is available.

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.

The timeline for the net on Tuesday, May 31, 2011 from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm is:

• 10:00 am, start the net. Announce net preamble, take check-ins, start message handling
available)
• 2:00 pm, close the net

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.

Statewide Hurricane Exercise - State CD RACES/ARES participation.

Expected path of the simulated exercise hurricane includes landfall on the island of Oahu.

26 May - NWS issues a hurricane warning
28 May, 11:00 am HST - Category 4 hurricane hits Oahu
30 May - All clear issued, post disaster assessment and recovery phase begins

Call signs:
SCD - KH6HPZ

SCD will be on the following frequencies at differing times:

147.060 - DH Repeater - Command/Control
146.880 - DH Repeater - for interoperation with Oahu DEM RACES

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 SCD and to exercise NVIS.

SCD will be on the SCD interisland net:
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 (May 28) will be from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm. KH6HPZ at State CD will be operating.

Tuesday (May 31) will be 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. KH6HPZ at State CD will be operating. Coast Guard Auxiliary will be operating.

Statewide Hurricane Exercise - Oahu DEM RACES participation.

Net Schedule:
TBD - KH6OCD

DEM will be on the following frequencies:

146.88- DH Repeater - Command/Control
146.98- FFMB Repeater - Traffic
146.55 Simplex
146.58 Simplex

Statewide Hurricane Exercise - Healthcomm participation. The Healthcomm organization will participate on Wednesday, June 1, 2011 as part of the monthly siren net.

Call signs:
Healthcomm - KH6HC

147.280 - Hawaii Medical Center-West Repeater
443.775+ pl 123.0
443.825
444.775+ pl 123.0

Healthcomm will be on HF:
40m on 7080 kHz LSB (+/- qrm) Primary
60m on 5371.5 kHz USB (+/- qrm) Alternate
80m on 3888 kHz LSB (if 40m is not open) Alternate

Additional information and educational material is available at:

• Actual operations during Hurricane Iniki
• Lessons learned
• Standard Operating Procedure
• Common Hawaii frequencies

This is an after-action report for the amateur radio operations for Makani Pahili 2011.

The operations and level of activity for Makani Pahili 2011 were higher than for MP 2010. More operators were present at SCD, and the expanded exercise with the staff on Tuesday provided an opportunity to exercise further the end-to-end and bidirectional workflow.

Equipment Status

This year, RACES received and installed equipment received from grants. Two PCs and large screen LCD monitors were installed and operational for the exercise.

Operations were on the two Kenwood TM-D710s for VHF/UHF, and the Icom IC-7000 for HF. All repeaters and links were operational this year. NVIS propagation on 7.088 started around 10 am.

Saturday

The RACES operations ran from 9:00 am to 12 noon. Robin Liu AH6CP set up the console area prior to departing. We had three primary operators: Ron Hashiro AH6RH, Kevin Bogan AH6QO, Larry Sue AH6SP. Additionally, guest operators Lara Payne WH6DLW, Peter Yuen KH6JBS, Clem Jung KH7HO, Vic Gustafson WH6QJ participated in handling some of the traffic.

There were 12 HF stations and 10 VHF stations checked into the net. Eight messages were passed and copied onto messaging forms. Two tactical messages were written into the HF position log. Natalie assisted with transcribing the messages onto email attachments. HF operations were on 7.088 only. Other HF frequencies were tried and there was no response.

Check-ins were from all major islands. One message from Oahu was passed from HF to DEM on VHF. One email message received via radio and WINLINK.

Tuesday

The SCD RACES operations ran from 10:00 am to 2 pm. Operators Kevin Bogan, Ron Hashiro, Peter Yuen and Larry Sue provided coverage on VHF and HF 7.088.

There were 9 stations on VHF, and 3 stations on HF. We had check-ins from:

• KH6HAM/N1CFD Aiea simulating the Coast Guard.
• NH7HI Kawaihae simulating North Hawaii Community Hospital
• N6NCT Keeaumoku simulating a DEM volunteer
• WHH6AA Makiki
• AH6E Kihei PDC
• WH7XO Pukalani Maui
• KC7KBA Kahului Maui simulating the Coast Guard.

Messages were sent via email to the DAIS, with CC to Clem Jung using Outlook Web Access (OWA). 13 messages were handled on VHF, and 3 messages were handled on HF. One message for HAH was relayed from HF from the Kawaihae on the Big Island to VHF to Makiki.

What worked well

The new PCs and monitors worked well. PC performance made OWA (Outlook Web Access) functional in real time.

Messages were relayed electronically into the DAIS via email.

Messages were relayed between HF and VHF nets.

The added operators gained exposure and experience in handling messages, and the use of the PCs and SCD email for submitting messages.

The additional operators enabled one operator to handle the radio communications and message logging while the second operator simultaneously entered the message into email for delivery electronically.

Improvements and Suggestions

A last minute discussion on Tuesday 9:50 am revealed that the means of relaying exercise response messages from the DAIS to the RACES position could be better coordinated/educated for next year. With the new PCs, the RACES position can receive emails from the DAIS.

NCS (Net Control Stations) stations on other non-SCD net frequencies did not relay the scenario bulletins on the other frequencies. The web page will be updated to encourage them to relay the bulletins.

The educational material for MP 2012 will be upgraded to encourage amateur radio operators to generate ICS-213 exercise messages.

The educational material for MP 2012 will be upgraded to request amateur radio operators to generate ICS-213 exercise message to contain an actionable request.

Going forward, SCD RACES will use the date-time-group as originated within the message as the message number. The time is expected to be in HST time.

For the exercise, the RACES position could use a communications status update to advise what external communications are available or not available -- to be consistent with the exercise scenario. The RACES position can transmit the update as a net bulletin on the radio net to others, so they can remain consistent with the scenario.

In a real event, the RACES position could use short bulletins from the DAIS to relay as a net bulletins on the radio nets and convey information as needed.