The United States Department of Defense with the Departments of United States Army and Air Force and United States MARS are holding their fourth quarter exercise.
This exercise is an continuous 48hr exercise comprising of Military, Government, and MARS stations testing the continuity of communications during an unknown event that will simulate a wide spread communications failure.
For military stations the exercise runs Sunday 30 October through Tuesday 1 November 2016 but Amateurs have been asked to participate in a few key specific times throughout the days of Sunday the 30th and Monday the 31st.
The DOD and Military command have asked for Amateurs in Western New York to help in this exercise by providing simple county status information for their stations at specified times on the 60 Meter INTEROP channel 1 throughout the exercise.
Amateurs are also asked if stations are able are to collect and provide as many neighboring counties as they can to the MARS stations.
The County Status message is an uniform 1 line message format that provides information on power, water, communication and emergency infrastructure to Military and Homeland security commands quickly during an emergency and with the help of other information gathering helps in deploying resources.
Those commanders have realized that the best and fastest way to gather that information is to get it from the Amateur community who are located in or around or are able to communicate with affected areas.
The information requested is REAL WORLD information so for most stations this means all you will need to provide the MARS station is your county and your call sign.
If there is any REAL WORLD emergency active within your county then you can provide the type of emergency and how the information was obtained and also the call sign of your station.
Amateurs in Western New York are asked to extend their communications to collect information on your neighboring counties through the use of local and linked repeater systems, We are working to provide a county status message for not only every county in Western New York but throughout the entire state and the State of New Jersey which comprise Region 2 for FEMA and governmental agencies..
Amateurs are also asked to pass this information along to other interested Amateurs through any means they see fit.
The tentative schedule for providing county status information on the
60 Meter INTEROP CH1 (5.330.5 USB)
Sunday 30 October 2016,
3pm, 6pm and 9pm
Monday 31 October 2016,
9am, 12pm, 3pm, 6pm, and 9pm.
Also the United States Military will transmit a message to amateur stations on Sunday 30 October 2016.
Military stations on the west and east coasts will transmit on the 60 Meter INTEROP Frequency CH1 (5.330.5 USB) every 5 minutes from 23:00EST on Sunday until 00:05EST (11pm-12:01am).
The station on the west coast will start at 23:00EST and they will cycle between both coasts every 5 minutes.
There will be reception and QSL reporting information in the message you receive.
Reception reports and comments are also welcome to this station, kc2dkp@verizon.net.
Thanks all and hope to hear you during the exercise.
Joe KC2DKP
W.N.Y.S.E.C.
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ARRL Western New York Section
Section Manager: Laura Mueller, N2LJM
n2ljm@arrl.org
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