Simulated Emergency Test by "Ham" operators, 2005

Every year during the fall months, amateur radio operators across North America practice their skills at providing communications to authorities, should disaster strike. The goal is to find out their strengths and weaknesses and determine how best to improve their efforts. Ham radio operators who participate in these exercises belong to the, Amateur Radio Emergency Services (A.R.E.S.), in association with the Radio Amateurs of Canada . In Ontario these groups are organized along the same lines as the Emergency Measures Ontario districts. In the exercise described below, the participating groups belong to the St. Lawrence District, which encompasses the Counties of Leeds & Grenville, Lanark, and the Greater Kingston area. This is the first time that a SET exercise has been conducted across the entire St. Lawrence district. The goal was to test their capabilities under adverse conditions and to work towards enhancing a Joint Support Protocol, where each group may support others, in terms of resources. Here is what transpired.

Norm Hagan VE3VY, District Emergency Coordinator

SET 2005 Lanark/North Leeds SCENARIO:

All repeaters are out of operation. No cell phones and or telephones the infrastructure has failed. Because of a category 4 hurricane on the east coast of Canada, Eastern Ontario has experienced damage to all our repeaters and have to resort to simplex 2 meter operations. There has been extensive flooding and high winds.

CALL OUT: Elizabeth Stratton of Social Services for Brockville and Area called Earl Holmes Emergency Coordinator for Lanark County/North Leeds at 08:00 local time and informed him that Lanark County had declared a state of emergency at 02:00 local time. Brockville and area declared a state of emergency at 05:00. Ms Stratton asked the EC to provide communicates for Red Cross and Social Services.

A.R.E.S MEMBERS CALL OUT: The EC for LC/NL A.R.E.S.activated their group at 08:30 local time.The members were instructed that all repeaters were out of operation, and we would have to use simplex operations. RELAY STATIONS: Norm Hagan VE3VY was dispatched to the Westport Mountain one of the highest land locations in the two counties. VE3VY set up his converted travel trailer. George Sansom VE3GWS was also dispatched to the mountain with the A.R.E.S. utility trailer, containing a 6500 watt generator, 30 foot tipover mast with a 2m antenna for operations. Art Childerhose VE3CGD set up operations at his QTH and was ready for relaying messages From Rideau Ferry. John Dougherty VE3CAK at Lyndhurst, set up his base station to relay messages from Brockville to Kingston. Brad Smith VE3BMS in Merricksville was ready to relay messages from Kemptville to Brockville and other relay stations.

CENTRAL OPERATIONS: Were set up at PERTH ONTARIO PROVINCAL POLICE conference room. The EC for LC/NL Earl Holmes VE3HEG conducted operations from the conference room. OPS. at the PERTH O.P.P. were Barrie Crampton VE3BSB, Ron Webb VE3WBE, Larry Palmer VE3LFP AEC. The Ops were all using logs to record the inbound and out messages, and check out and check in of operators if they left our frequencies.

HOSPITAL OPS: Were dispatched to the Kemptville, Perth, Smiths Falls Hospitals. David Stephenson VE3PYG, was sent to Kemptville Hospital for operations. There is an 2m antenna on the hospital, but know one at the hospital knew where the coax was located.

Rod Ellis, VE3RXE, set up a station at the Kingston General Hospital. Traffic was passed via a UHF link to the Red Cross HQ station, manned by Ken Tyers, VE3RWT, and Larry McGuire, VE3LDM, and VHF links from Red Cross to Westport Mountain via Bob Boyd, VE3SV

Tony Wilson VE3XNT went to the Smiths Falls Hospital and was not able to operate from this building as well. Al Niittymaa VE3KAI, set up operations at the Perth Hospital, neither Perth or the Smiths Falls Hospital was accessible to where the radios and coax was located. So all Ops set up operations in the parking lots and passed traffic successfully.

MUTUAL AID: One of the other point of SET 2005 was to pass messages to from Kemptville, Brockville, Kingston, Perth, and Smiths Falls Hospitals, via 2m simplex. Brockville frequency 146.550 Kingston 146:475, and Perth 146:580. Kingston and Brockville used other simplex frequencies for their local traffic. It was found that if the three frequencies were left for sending and receiving messages out of the area there was not as many pile ups.

WHAT WAS LEARNED: There were mistakes made in sending messages but the Ops learned real fast, we learn from our mistakes. All Ops did a Professional Job, if a problem arose they solved the problem. We now know we can cover a good portion of Eastern Ontario with 2 m simplex communications, if we loose our repeaters. It would be nice to have a common frequency for all stations and another for local communications but that would require two rigs and two antennas, or each station having scan between a common and a local frequency. Another might be to have key stations monitor a common frequency, say every 15 minutes for 5 or whatever. What went right is as important as what went wrong.

The following is reprinted from the Brockville Recorder-Times

Ham operators, authorities join forces for 'emergency' By DEREK ABMA, Staff Writer Staff Writer

Ham radio hobbyists and public institutions from across the region took part in an exercise over the weekend on keeping up communications in the event of a hurricane. Pete Peterson, a member of the Leeds and Grenville Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES), was manning some communications equipment at the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital. "It's to test the communications between here and other places," Peterson said of the exercise. He said he and other participants went on the basis that electricity had been lost, which knocked out power to computers and cellphone networks, and amateur radio repeaters.

Land-line telephone would be hard to use as well, Peterson said, given infrastructure damage and the large demand that would be placed on the system in a time of crisis. The psychiatric hospital is one of a handful of facilities in the region with the equipment to pick up direct radio communications. In this exercise, the personnel here monitored messages certain agencies or people were trying to get to others. For instance, at one point someone from the Perth hospital was trying to get a message to the Brockville General Hospital that some of the latter's staff were needed in Perth.

Because the BGH isn't equipped for radio communications, it would be up to someone who got the message to somehow relay it to the hospital, Peterson said. "Somebody might have to drive over to the hospital and say, 'Here's a message. Somebody needs your help out in Perth.'" The Canadian Red Cross office, across the street from the Brockville hospital, has radio equipment and was taking part in the exercise. In a real situation, it probably would have made sense for someone from there to go across the street and give the message to the hospital, Peterson said.

Other locations in which radio operators were taking part in Saturday's exercise included the Leeds and Grenville Social Services department, South Grenville District High School and the Merrickville Community Centre. Many other amateur radio operators were communicating from their homes.

Ron Bryan, another radio enthusiast who was manning the psychiatric hospital centre during the exercise, said ham radio hobbyists are expected by government to help out this way during an emergency. "Amateur radio is written right into their emergency plans," he said. Peterson said Saturday's exercise was beneficial and the technology and plans that were tested worked efficiently.

Kingston ARES Group.

A call out was to be initiated by the EC of the LNL ARES Group. This did not occur as it was to be done using IRLP. However, a DTMF microphone was not available at the EC’s location in Perth. Eventually a callout was initiated by VE3GWS/VY from their location at Foley Mountain (Westport). Kingston responded by manning their Red Cross Headquarters station, as well as the Kingston General Hospital and Hotel Dieu Hospital locations. Traffic originated from Kingston in response to traffic from Smith’s Falls and other locations. Traffic was mainly routed from Kingston (VE3SV) to the Foley Mountain Westport site and onwards. Kingston handled traffic locally on their assigned simplex frequency and a schedule was set up to receive and send relayed traffic via the Westport site. This operation was successful.

 

SET 2004

SIMULATED EMERGENCY TRAINING 2004, WAS HELD ON OCT. 23, 04. AT 09:00 HOURS LOCAL.

THE SCENARIO WAS A LARGE FOREST FIRE IN THE LANARK HIGHLANDS,

VA3VAW AND VE3LSW ACTED AS NET CONTROLLERS IN OUR MCP (MOBILE COMMAND POST TRAILER) AND THEY DID AN EXCELLENT JOB. THE MCP WAS LOCATED AT THE OPP BUILDING IN PERTH.

WE USED THE LANARK FIRE HALL AS FIRE CONTROL CENTRE,

THE FIRST ACTION PLAN WAS TO GET THE CASARA (CIVIL AVIATION SEARCH & RESCUE ASSOCIATION) AIRCREWS DISPATCHED. THESE CREWS WERE CALLED OUT FROM THEIR HOMES IN THE OTTAWA AREA, THE INTENTION WAS TO MAKE IT REALISTIC. CASARA WANTED TO FIND OUT HOW LONG IT WOULD TAKE TO GET CREWS AIRBORNE AND GET TO THE FIRE AREA.

WE USED THE SMITHS FALLS HOSPITAL RADIO AND ANTENNA, OUR OPERATOR WAS NOT ABLE TO ACCESS THE RADIO AND ANTENNA AT THERE AND BECAME A MOBILE UNIT OUTSIDE THE HOSPITAL.

CARLETON PLACE HOSPITAL WAS OPERATED AS A MOBILE UNIT.

THE BECKWITH FIRE STATION WAS ON THE AIR AS WELL WITH AL, VE3DMR.

WE HAD A VHF/HF BASE STATION SET UP IN MERRICKVILLE AND DAVE VE3PYG MONITORED THE TRANS-PROVINCIAL NET FOR INCOMING MESSAGES, WE RECEIVED MESSAGES FROM BROCKVILLE, VIA KINGSTON WHICH WERE SENT TO EMO TORONTO VIA WINLINK2000, (ON HF) USING "AIRMAIL". THESE MESSAGES CONCERNED A FICTICTIOUS EXPLOSION IN THE BROCKVILLE AREA AND WERE MEANT TO APPRISE EMO HEADQUARTERS OF THE PROBLEM. REPLIES WERE RECEIVED AND RELAYED.

CASARA AIRCRAFTS WERE DISPATCHED FROM OTTAWA AND WERE TO LOOK FOR FURTHER FIRE BREAK OUTS AND TO DETERMINE WHETHER ANY RESCUE OPERATION WAS REQUIRED. ROCKCLIFFE AIRBASE HAD RICHARD VA3SHQ OPERATE THE BASE RADIO AT THE SMITHS FALLS AIRPORT FOR AIRCRAFT COMMUNICATIONS. THEY ALSO USED THE IRLQ LINK BETWEEN ROCKCLIFFE AND THE MCP IN PERTH.

GEORGE SANSOM VE3GWS WAS MOBILE AND WENT TO THE LANARK HIGHLANDS FIRE AREA. HE SUBSEQUENTLY REQUESTED AN AIR RESCUE BE INITIATED AT 11:20 LOCAL. HE GAVE HIS CO-ORDINATES USING A GPS UNIT. WITHIN FIVE MINUTES THE CASARA AIRCRAFT HAD FOUND GEORGE. HE WAS WEARING HIS ORANGE VEST AND HELD A FLARE ALOFT. A CALL WAS SENT FROM ROCKCLIFFE TO TRENTON AIR RESCUE FOR A SIMULATED HELICOPTER RESCUE.

ALL THREE HOSPITALS AND THE FIRE STATIONS GAVE SIGNAL REPORTS AND PASSED MESSAGES ON SIMPLEX. IN SOME CASES THERE WERE RELAYS. THE TASK FOR VE3VY, NORM HAGAN, DEC. WAS TO CRITIQUE THE BROCKVILLE AND LANARK EXERCISES.

ALL TRAFFIC WAS COMPLETED BY 12:00 LOCAL,

ARES MEMBERS THAT PARTICIPATED INCLUDED:

VA3VAW VAL WEBB, VE3WBE RON WEBB, VE3LSW HELEN CHILDERHOSE, VE3CGD ART CHILDERHOSE, VE3GWS GEORGE SANSOM, VE3BSB BARRIE CRAMPTON, VE3XNT TONY WILSON, VE3DMR AL ROSS, VE3YSH RICHARD BUCKLEY, VE3PYG DAVID STEPHENSON, VE3VY NORM HAGAN DEC,. VE3HEG EARL HOMES EC,.

 

Organized and submitted by Earl Holmes, EC, Lanark/North Leeds ARES.