This Sunday, Chenango County ARES/RACES will be participating in a joint Simulated Emergency Test. The SET is a nationwide exercise is the chance to test your personal emergency-operating skills and the readiness of your communications equipment and accessories in a simulated emergency-like deployment.
All wishing to participate, are asked to join in on Sunday, November 9th at 3pm. We will start out on 146.42 simplex. I will monitor the 146.685 repeater during the drill as a backup.
The goal is to gather a workable list of towns that we can establish communications in & out of. For this drill we will NOT be focused on repeater operations. While “I can hit this repeater” may be useful… we are really looking for real-world data about communications not requiring infrastructure.
If stations have the capabilities, we would encourage testing of as many bands as possible… 10m, 6m, 2m, 1.25m & 70cm for example.
The drill will be fairly simple. Setup your HF station in a way that takes advantage of NVIS (Near Vertical Incidence Skywave) and log who you can make contact with as well as who you can hear. All amateurs, whether members of ARES or not are welcome & encouraged to participate and for that matter… anyone is encouraged to submit a report of stations heard, whether you’re licensed or not. Even those who can only listen can participate!
I have made up a “quick & dirty” station log & report form which can be used to keep track of who you hear and can then be sent to me. It has been uploaded to our website and can be downloaded at https://cvara.net/nvis-log/ The log form gives space for you to describe your station setup as well as list each station you heard. If you were able to make contact with the logged station, please note that in the form as well.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me.
Thanks,
Matthew Jenne – WZ2I
Chenango County EC