Friday, November 3, 2017

Notice of exercise this weekend: COMEX 17-4 SIMULATED WARNING MESSAGE

 from KC2WI; Pete Newell; ARES Section Emergency Coordinator, Northern New York



I am sending this to you for information and action. Please pass this info on to all hams and please make every effort to participate this weekend November 4~5, 2017.

People in the know are VERY concerned about the effect of a large scale coronal mass ejection (CME) from the sun, or of the EMP from detonatioin of a nuclear weapon high in the atmosphere. The former is known to have occured and is predicted to happen again. Given the current state of political affairs, the latter is a distinct possibility either from North Korea or if some terrorist organization gets control of a nuclear weapon.

Either would devastate the power grid and any equipment connected to it. The result would be widespread loss of electrical power and by extension virtually everthing else that society depends on. Most unprotected electronics would be destroyed, especially if connected to any external wires like power cords, the power grid, or antennas, or even ground wires.

http://nnyara.net/COMEX17-4/Electronics_and_Communication_Vulnerability.ppt <<read this and you will see the potential magnitude of the problem.

In the case of a CME we would have about 12 hours between the event and when the effects hit Earth. I would get notice by email, text, phone from MARS. I would try to pass it on to you. You would want to disconnect absolutely everything from power grid and further protect whatever possible.

It is assumed that at lease some hams would have advance warning, could protect equipment ear or some would have spare equipment , and therefore could operate after the CME. Since virtually all other systems would be inoperable, amateur radio could be the only method of gathering info for initial damage assessment.

Therefore, MARS has been tasked by the DOD with contacting Amateur Radio Operators to gather this info.


For the purposes of this EXERCISE, we assume that the CME hits on Friday, you have been warned in some way or anther (consider this your SIMULATED WARNING), have protected your equipment,  and by Saturday the electromagnetic radiation levels have decreased sufficiently that intact radio equipment can be operated.

Commencing Saturday and continuing through Sunday, MARS operators will be on HF, VHF, UHF ham bands using thier ham calls, and on 60 Meters using their MARS calls looking for QSOS with hams to obtain informal reports of the status of critical infrastructure and services in every county of the US. Repeater contacts are permitted, but jno use of Echolink of other non-radio means.

Factual information about local conditions are requested.  Reports generated in the exercise should not depict fictional or scenario based information.
Please make an effort to make thses contacts. I plan to be on the NYS Phone Traffic & Emergeny net 3925 6PM Saturday night and the North Country Group 3958 8:30 AM Sunday morning. I iwll also try to be on 3935 Saturday morning starting around 8:30 AM for the Carrier Net pre-net. If these times and frequencies are not convenient, please reply and we may be able to set up a diferent schedule.

Something to think about for your ARES/RACES group: For purposes of this exercise, repeater contacts are allowed, but if this very bad day scenario actually happens, amateur repeaters will be destroyed just as easily as commercial and public service communications infrastructure, so you better prepare for emergency communications using only point to point simplex either on VHF/UHF or on HF.  

EXERCISE************ EXERCISE ************* EXERCISE


THIS MESSAGE SERVES AS NOTIFICATION OF A SIMULATED SOLAR STORM.
SIMULATE SOLAR STORM CONDITIONS ON 03 NOV 1200Z (LOCAL FRIDAY
MORNING) THROUGH 04 NOV 1200Z (LOCAL SATURDAY EVENING)

TIMETABLE
l 2 Nov 1200Z (local Thursday am) start exercise. Notification of Simulated solar storm
l 3 Nov 1200Z (local Friday morning) black out phase, solar storm Simulated
l 4 Nov 1200Z (local Saturday morning) begin operations following Simulated solar storm, and begin collecting and reporting county status reports.
l 5 Nov 0300Z to 0315Z (local Saturday night) information broadcast, 60 meters
l 5 Nov 1600Z to 1615Z (local Sunday morning) information broadcast, 13 MHZ

A PowerPoint Presentation to help describe what might be expected during a real "bad day" event caused by a CARRINGTON CLASS SOLAR STORM can be downloaded from the Northern New York Amateur Radio Association web site.

EXERCISE************ EXERCISE ************* EXERCISE

Your participation is requested.

Pete Newell KC2WI
ARES Section Emergency Coordinator, Northern New York http://nnyara.net
Coordinator, Lewis County Emergency Coordinators Group http://lcecg.org
ARES EC / RACES RO, Lewis County

MARS - Military Auxiliary Radio System LMSC NNY - AFA2CQ

2 comments:

  1. It is in fact a post to be shared. We are facing a large scale coronal mass ejection from the sun this has to be stopped. I will pass on this message among my friend circle. Wish you all the best.

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