As the day of the
Simulated Exercise Test approaches, the amateur Operators from Newton are
planning an in-person meeting for Thursday evening, April 11, at 7:00 p.m. in
the training room at the Newton Town Hall. If you are a radio operator from another
community in the Northwest Cache County area that is not participating in the
exercise and want to join us at the meeting, you are welcome.
The criteria for the exercise will follow the State’s recommendation on the Great Utah Shakeout website of a 5.7 magnitude earthquake centered on the east side of the valley, with no fatalities in Cache County, and only 4 homes in the county sustaining unlivable damage. While the scenario does not specify significant loss of life or severe damage, the opportunity to test communications between the participating organizations should not be diminished by the scenario criteria.
This exercise will be managed as if the more common modes of communication are not viable because of the earthquake. This means we will be using radio frequencies for voice communication, and packet radio modes for digital communications.
For all operators joining us over the radio on the night of the exercise, the NWCV Net frequency assignment will be used for voice communications. I will have the cross-band repeat function enabled.
If you do not have the cross-band channel programmed to your radio, please do so before the 18th. I can help if needed. The receive frequency is 147.420 MHz, with a transmit frequency of 446.500 MHz. If you are not able to program a split channel, please use 147.420 simplex. No tone is needed for access.
Shortly after 5:30 on the evening of the 18th, the Newton EOC will be activated. Once we have checked in with the Cache County EOC our operators will tune to the NWCV Net frequency and ask for stations in Newton and the other NWCV Net communities to check-in to the net, including radio operators from the units in the Benson Stake.
For
radio operators from Newton:
If you are not participating as a Ward Communication
Specialist, you are invited to participate as an EOC staff member. Additional
details on how the rest of the exercise will proceed for the Newton EOC will be
available at the meeting on the 11th.
For Ward Communications Specialists:
After voice check in is complete, each ward in the stake is encouraged to transmit a simulated neighborhood assessment to the Stake Communication Specialist using amateur radio as the mode of communication. Follow up messages in the form of resource requests, or offers to supply volunteers to other units, etc., are also encouraged. You may use the details in your initial neighborhood assessment as the basis for resource requests, also sent by radio transmission.
More information on transmitting your neighborhood assessment is down below. Now, lets discuss the message content. The Initial neighborhood assessment should follow the Church’s three “M’s” reporting procedure for emergencies: namely “members, missionaries, and meetinghouses”.
For this exercise, each
unit could include the total number of people living within the ward boundary –
specifying a separate number of full-time missionaries living within the ward
boundary - and a simulated status of those two categories of individuals. This
simulated report could specify several people with injuries and some detail
about the extent of injuries, or simply state all are safely accounted for.
In addition to the status
of persons, the neighborhood assessment should include structural damage
reports of the residences within the ward boundary. Again, there is an
opportunity to report minor or moderate damage to a certain number of
residences, for example.
Lastly, any unit with a
meetinghouse within its boundary is to submit a simulated status report for the
meetinghouse – simulating damage, or none.
The LDS Church
Disaster Report or an ICS 213 form can be used to record your simulated
assessment. These forms are fillable and can be saved as .pdf files in advance
of the exercise.
Winlink is the preferred mode of communication for these assessment messages, as specified by the exercise planners. A computer with an internet connection is all you need to send Winlink messages, and for this exercise the Telnet mode is okay. If you need assistance setting up Winlink on a computer, contact me, or see this post for instructions.
There are some Ward Communications Specialists who are not licensed amateurs. If this applies to your ward, inkeeping with the goal of the exercise to operate as if normal modes of communication are not available, please work with me and I will reach out to known radio operators in your ward to see if they are willing to transmit the messages you have prepared by Winlink, or over the voice channel in use for the exercise.
Winlink messages from the Ward Communications Specialists should be sent shortly after 6 p.m. the night of the exercise, addressed to BENSONSTKUT@winlink.org, with the completed form attached.
If you are a Ward Communication Specialist who is a licensed operator, or a radio operator helping a non-radio licensed specialist but will not be able to use Winlink over telnet or one of the packet modes, you can read the message content from the prepared form over voice frequency on the night of the exercise. Voice messages containing the neighborhood assessment will be called for on the net frequency after the initial check ins are complete.
If no radio operator is available for your ward, we still want your response. You can email your completed assessment form as an attachment to BENSONSTKUT@winlink.org. These messages can be sent in advance of the 6:00 p.m. call for Winlink or voice responses.
After your initial assessment is submitted over radio by Winlink or voice, or by regular email, a follow up message from your ward could include a request for volunteers to help remove debris from damaged structures, or a request for a plumber to help repair damage from an unsecured water heater in a residence, as a couple of examples. Or a notice could be sent to the stake indicating you have X number of volunteers who are available to help if a need exists in another ward.
Once received by the Stake Communications Specialist, the neighborhood assessments and resource requests
will be evaluated, and forwarded to the appropriate agencies – the Bishop’s
Storehouse, a city communication center, or to the county communications center.
Replies to the messages received will go back to the ward level.