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NC ARES Simulated Emergency Test (SET)
2013

New Information for 2013 SET
Nov 30, 2013

Greetings from the NC ARES/AUXCOMM Team.

The purpose of the November 30 EX is to establish and gain proficiency in digital Comms, using the fldigi suite of tools. Today's focus is the ICS-213 message form, using flmsg to format the message. The protocol for today's EX is MT63-1KL (that's 1K Long).

We intend to start slow and work toward a bit more complexity.. For the first message(s), you may simply type a reply in the Reply section at the bottom of the form. Your reply initially can only contain your callsign and location, County, etc, and any additional text that you wish to add by typing or pasting from another source.

The second step this morning will have you copy some specific text from the message you receive and paste that into the reply section of the form. You may add additional text, if you desire.

Note that these messages are usually tactical in nature - short and to-the-point.

NOTE THIS: While our normal day-to-day voice operations on 80M/75M is LSB, ALL DIGITAL COMMS IS USB. So, if operating in the conventional LSB arena, we have to move down in frequency to be sure we don't clobber a QSO above us,.I have a radio with a big panadapter and will make sure we are good citizens. If it's really crowded, we'll move down to a lower part of the band for the digital stuff.

We'll use 3923 or 3927 as available at 0900. This will operate as a simplistic Tar Heel net for the sake of order.

Thanks,

Tom Brown N4TAB NC SEC NC AUXCOMM Coordinator

2013 NC Simulated Emergency Test
Oct 15, 2013

(SET) Initial Information October 15, 2013

This the initial information about the NC SET. This event will build-upon that of last year, in which we emphasized learning to use the Winlink email-via-HF Radio. Hopefully, you still dust that off and maintain your skills. This year, we're going to use that again and we're going to add some additional Digital capability.

Winlink can be used to send email via radio and that email can contain attachments such as forms, small images, etc. The Winlink system is quite robust and has a very strong following within EM Agencies throughout the US. Winlink, however, can't accomplish one aspect that we think important -- broadcast, or point-to-multipoint message handling in near real-time.

If you imagine a scenario where something bad has happened or is expected to happen, what-if, while you're listening to the THEN on 3923, The State EOC announces that it has Common Traffic for all EOC's that are on-frequency. Then the State Operator announces that the message will be sent on the same frequency via a digital mode -- maybe MT63-1K. Further imagine that you've already booted a free program and, using the same setup (radio and sound card) that you have used for Winlink, you simply observe the screen and watch the message text appear. You can then save, print or take whatever action might be needed. If you missed a part of the message, you just reply via keyboard or voice that you need a fill for the needed part and you get that almost immediately.

All stations can monitor, like a party line. There are lots of useful scenarios that could be spawned, such as specific digital nets to handle larger volumes of digital traffic.

This event will not be painful or difficult. For anyone that needs help, that will be available and we'll have a couple of practice sessions prior to the SET dates.

So, to get started, go to the following site and download the free software listed below:

http://www.w1hkj.com/download.html

winlink download page

Most folks will need the Windows Setup version. BTW, we will offer one SET event in November and another in December. You can participate in either or both -- Saturday mornings - dates TBD. Note that the State EOC AUXCOMM stations will be active on both dates.

Thanks and 73,

Tom N4TAB
NC ARES SEC
NC AUXCOMM Coordinator