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South Carolina Emergency Management Division
Statewide Full-Scale Wildfire Exercise
Saturday, April 11, 2026

Kershaw County ARES
Participation

Annual SC CommEX Exercise
Theme: "Wildfires Throughout the State"
Kershaw County will function as an experimental group: limited participation times with planned shorter activity times throughout the week.
1-2 hours each on Monday through Thursday evenings

Questions? Contact Ron Jarosz KB1ND, Kershaw County ARES EC


Please Monitor

Kershaw County ARES Simplex:
146.430 MHz
Kershaw County Amateur Radio Club Simplex
146.460 MHz

The following links can supply more information about this annual emergency preparation event


Kershaw County ARES Experimental Plan
Monday Through Tuesday


Monday
Fires discovered
Move to OPCON 1
activate our team.

  1. Initiate activation process will begin in 146.480 after the KCARC simplex on 146.460 to
  2. Establish emergency coordination net; and,
  3. Update team and provide assignments.
  4. Instruction on Field Situation report (this is a Winlink form which will required by SC EMD)


Tuesday
Fires expand
Test ability of team to monitor and report locally and statewide using NVIS HF and local repeaters.
Use the existing Tuesday evening SC ARES HF Net (3.990 mhz starting at 6 PM local time) for a test of statewide communication:

  1. Everyone checks-in when District 3 is directed to check-in (provide call sign, name & county).
  2. Record who you can hear from the 11 District 3 counties (Lancaster, Fairfield, Kershaw, Saluda, Lexington, Richland, Sumter, Calhoun, Ckarendon and Orangeburg). You will also be able to see the stations on Netlogger (Look up: SC ARES HF Net).
  3. Record signal quality

Wednesday Through Saturday


Wednesday.
Fire damage and attrition start to take toll on resources
Primarily forms/reporting day (all Day)
Details are still in the works for this day.

  1. Based on assignments you will complete a Winlink: General Check-in, SC Resource Request, Status Report.
  2. Utilize Winlink and address your Winlink email to KB1ND.
  3. KB1ND will provide basic information on locating and using them.


Thursday.
Fires mostly out of control and resources greatly depleted, most normal communication modes inoperable.

.

  1. Test ability to communicate with very basic Simplex capability.
  2. This activity still requires some planning but we have time


Friday.

  1. No radio communications planned at this time.
  2. Allows for changes/improvement for Saturday


Saturday
Fire is still very active and the day starts with normal communications and degrades as exercise progresses.
This day is about testing our ability to communicate with the SEOC in various adverse conditions.

  1. No radio communications planned at this time.
  2. Allows for changes/improvement for Saturday


Kershaw County ARES Simplex

146.430 MHZ

Kershaw County Amateur Radio Club Simplex

146.460 MHz

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