Next ARES^®
Planning & Development Meeting
Monday September 30, 2019
7:00 PM
*** Originally scheduled for October 7th ***
*** Moved up so we could discuss the ***
*** upcoming Simulated Emergency Test ***

The next St. Louis Metro ARES Planning & Development meeting will take place at Barnes-Jewish West County Hospital and start at 7:00 PM. It will take place in the Private Dining Room, located at the rear of the downstairs cafeteria.

Everyone is welcome, you do not need to be an ARES volunteer to attend.

Simulated Emergency Test
All Amateur Radio Operators Invited to Participate
Saturday October 5, 2019

Scenario:

A massive earthquake has hit the area.

Response:

At approximately 8:00 AM Saturday morning email and text alerts will go out to ARES registered volunteers. A Net Control Station located at the St. Louis County Emergency Operations Center will announce on the 146.850 (-)(141.3 Hz) repeater that the Simulated Emergency Test has begun and will ask volunteers to check in. (You do not need to be an ARES registered volunteer to respond. All amateur radio operators are invited to participate.) When the check-ins have concluded, Net Control will ask each volunteer for his/her location. He will then ask them to deploy to the field site nearest to them. Those will be -

• Zone 1 (north of Page Avenue) = McDonnell Park shelter, 2961 Adie Road (just off of Lindbergh Blvd).
• Zone 2 (south of Page, north of Interstate I-44) = Tilles Park shelter, 9551 Litzsing Road (south of I-64/US-40 on McKnight Road)
• Zone 3 - (south of Interstate I-44) = Sylvan Springs Park, 300 Halsey Street (near Telegraph Road and Sappington Barracks Road)
• Zone 4 - (City of St. Louis) = Sublette Park, 5701 Arsenal Street (at Southwest and Arsenal)

What you should take with you:

• At a bare miniumum, yourself, your amateur radio license, and a hand-held transceiver. Be prepared to enter frequencies into it.
• If you have one, your VHF/UHF field station (a mobile unit, not a hand-held) with portable antenna and power source. Again, be prepared to enter frequencies into your radio.
• Nice option #1 = If you have one, bring your portable HF rig and everything that you will need to make it operational in the field.
• Nice option #2 = If you have a Winlink setup that will work in the field, either VHF or HF, please bring it.

Activities:

Sign in with site lead operator. If you have equipment, he will have you set it up and give you an assignment. If you do not have equipment, he will assign you to assist and/or learn from one of the other operators. He will inform all participants of the site tactical call sign and the frequencies that will be used during the exercise. At approximately 9:30 AM on-air traffic will begin. You will send and receive formal messages using message forms, and log your activities on FEMA ICS-309 forms. Messages will be sent back and forth between the four park sites, plus the EOC. Other simulated locations may also come on the air. We will attempt to use VHF/UHF, HF, and Winlink as means to pass messages. When all traffic has been passed (no later than 1:00 PM but probably earlier), the site lead operator will conduct a "hotwash", or immediate after-action discussion about the exercies. All forms will be turned in, the participants will sign out and may depart.

Final word:

St. Louis Metro ARES has done a number of these exercises, each one a little bit more complex than before. We try to make them as realistic as possible so that the participants can get a taste of what an actual deployment may be like. We ask the participants for honest appraisals of the exercises so that we can improve future ones.

Mistakes, flubs, equipment failures and so forth are to be expected, from the newest participant to the planners and organizers. This is how we learn. And as always, "The are no dumb questions, only unasked ones". We always find these exercises to be interesting, and generally fun as well.

Please join us.