Vermont ARES Emergency Communications Plan
Vermont Amateur Radio Emergency Services
(VT ARES)
Emergency Communications Plan
2006
Paul Gayet AA1SU - Vermont Section Manager
Bob Brown W4YFJ - Section Emergency Coordinator
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Introduction 3
A. Purpose Statement 4
II. Situation and Planning Assumptions 5
A. Situation 5
B. Planning Assumptions 6
III. Concept of Operations 6
IV. Organization and Assignment of Responsibilities 11
V. Plan Development and Maintenance 12
A. Development 12
B. Maintenance 12
C. Document Control 12
VI. Authorities and References 12
Administrative Appendences 13
I. Introduction
A. The Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL) is a national organization to promote the interests of the Amateur Radio Service in the United States. The Amateur Radio Service is defined in Part 97 of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations as a “voluntary, non-commercial communication service, particularly with respect to providing emergency communications”. The Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) is a volunteer organization sponsored by the ARRL, to provide communications in times of emergencies. The ARRL facilitates emergency communications through its Field Organization in general and ARES in particular. All ARES volunteers are FCC licensed Amateur Radio operators.
B. The United States and its possessions are divided into 71 Sections, and Vermont, a geographically defined ARRL subdivision, is comprised of one Section. Each section operates under the direction of a Section Manager, an elected position within the Field Organization. There are also eight defined VT ARES Districts, or subdivisions, within the Vermont Section.
C. ARES operates to serve both governmental and non-governmental agencies through “Memoranda Of Understanding” (MOUs). These MOUs and other non-binding letters explain the roles and responsibilities of the participating partners, and are initiated at both the national and section levels. If an MOU exists on the national level, then it need not be in place at the section or local level. Agencies and organizations signatory to MOUs are referred to as “Client Agencies”. The MOU’s exist for the American Red Cross, Salvation Army, FEMA, National Weather Service and others and are on file at ARRL Headquarters. These MOU’s can be found at: http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/mou/
Some organizations and towns do not have an MOU with ARES. These customers will be served by ARES in the same fashion as other Served Agencies.
D. The events of September 11, 2001 and the new Department of Homeland Security have increased the need for trained and competent communicators. The affiliation of ARRL with the Citizen Corps, the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), and other agencies offers new opportunities of service for ARES.
E. VT ARES recognizes Vermont Emergency Management (VEM) within the Vermont Department of Public Safety as the state agency responsible for emergency command and control during declared disasters and major emergencies. VT ARES also recognizes the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES), a radio communications service of volunteer licensed amateurs specifically designed to provide emergency communications to local or state civil preparedness agencies. RACES is administered by civil authorities and not the ARRL.
A. Purpose Statement
A. This plan offers the general structure of the ARES organization and the plan to respond to Served Agencies during times of communications outages for those agencies.
II. Situation and Planning Assumptions
A. Situation
This plan covers situations within the State of Vermont where normal means of communications are disabled or not operational. The Served Agency would contact a leader within ARES or any member of the organization and that member would contact other members to activate the ARES organization to provide Emergency Communications for the Served Agency
B. Planning Assumptions
This plan assumes that any served agency can request activation of the ARES organization to provide Emergency Communications during time of emergency or for a training drill.
This plan assumes that at least 20% of the organization would be available for training or to serve in a real emergency. This includes equipment and provisions for at least 72 hours of operation.
Each ARES member has a copy of the entire Vermont ARES Roster.
III. Concept of Operations
A. STATE ARES ACTIVATION
A Served Agency or any Emergency Manager throughout the State might call a member of ARES to activate the organization. Each member of the organization should have a current copy of the roster in order to contact the leadership team. If a statewide activation is required the member should contact a DEC and that DEC contacts the SEC. The SEC will activate any adjacent Districts (Partial Activation), or all Districts (Full Activation), depending on the circumstances. Additionally the SEC may decide to send out a Rapid Response Team (RRT). The leadership team activates the membership of that district to meet at a specific place or specific frequency. This process will be flexible depending on the nature of the Emergency.
The Served Agency could contact any member of the ARES organization and that member would contact the leadership to ensure that the Activation is conducted in an orderly fashion.
B. DISTRICT / LOCAL ARES ACTIVATION
District and Local ARES activation will be customized by district. Some districts due to their size choose to be self activated and some will use a phone tree or e-mail. Activation will by the quickest means available.
District Activation Plans are as follows:
District 1 Chittenden, Grand Isle, and Franklin Counties
Self Activation: Primary Repeater: Bolton 145.15 and Back-up Burlington 146.61
District 2.Orleans (OL) Essex (ES) and Caledonia (CA) Counties
Self Activation: Utilize 146.745 (Jay Peak) repeater. All members will subscribe to Emergency Email.org for weather email and additionally monitor 162.400 for weather emergencies.
District 3.Washington (WA) Orange (OG) and Lamoille (LA) Counties
Self Activation Meet on Williamstown Repeater 146.625- 146.490+
District 4.Windsor (WR) County
Email or Phone Tree will be used and meet on the Mt Ascutney Repeater on 146.76 MHz
District 5 Bennington (BE) County
Self activating utilizing primary repeater 146.835(-) in Shaftsbury. Secondary frequencies repeater output simplex (146.835) and 145.390(-)-Mt Equinox. Local served agencies have list of 5 local members who are generally available to find in person should phone lines be down.
District 6 Rutland (RU) County
Phone Tree. The team will meet on the local Rutland Repeater (147.045) and depending on
the emergency the Killington repeater will be used on 444.45 Mhz.
District 7 Addison (AD ) County
Self Activation: Utilize the Middlebury repeater 147.360 or Alternate repeater in Minville on 147.255.
District 8 Windham (WM) County
Phone Tree: Meet on the Marlboro Repeater 147.015 Secondary-Newfane Repeater 444.70
C. STATEWIDE EMERGENCY FREQUENCIES (CALLING FREQUENCIES)
The statewide calling frequencies will be used by Emergency HF nets. The net control operator can move the net plus or minus depending on QRM and conditions. There will be usually two nets active during an emergency. The primary net will be the Emergency Traffic Net and will be controlled by the net control operator. The net control operator can move two or more stations to alternate frequencies to pass traffic as needed.
The primary HF frequency will be 3976 KHz.
The Secondary HF Frequency will be 7275 KHz.
These frequencies act as “Rally Frequencies” for Vermont ARES. Should an “event” occur within the state, ARES members should monitor these frequencies for bulletins and other information from the SEC. These frequencies can also be used by any DEC to share information (spot reports) prior to the activation of the formal net.
Note that these frequencies are positioned close to the RACES frequencies in order for stations to be able to move from one net to another without significant retuning of transmission equipment.
The other net that will be active during an emergency will be a Command and Coordination net. All Stations should initially check into this net and be transferred to traffic net. These nets will be on:
Primary HF Frequency will be 3985 KHz and secondary will be on 7285 KHz.
The Command and Coordination net will be utilized as initial Check-in and coordination of resources.
D. STATE ARES DE-ACTIVATION
The Served Agency or Emergency Manager may ask the ARES leadership to de-activate the organization at the end of the disaster. This process will normally be accomplished through the DEC’s or an EC.
Personnel will be released in an orderly fashion ensuring that the proper documentation is complete and transferred to the EC’s responsible for each area.
E. NET CONTROL PROCEDURES
(John Gladding is developing this section)
Act as Net Control Station during regularly scheduled nets.
a. You may use a generic net script or you may devise one of your own, but you should always use the first paragraph from the generic script.
b. Establish a Alternate Net Control Station (ANCS) before proceeding very far into your script. The ANCS will take over if your station fails or you cannot continue for some reason. The ANCS will also relay stations into the net if they cannot be heard by the NCS due to propagation issues.
c. Call for check ins. Follow the format of requesting:
i. The operator's name
ii. The operator's call sign (given using standard phonetics)
iii. The operator's location
iv. Traffic
1. Emergency
2. Priority
3. Routine
4. Query
5. Information
d. After all traffic is moved and any business concluded, thank all participants and the trustee of the repeater, then close the net.
e. Upon closing the net prepare a report including the following information:
i. A list of the call signs of everyone who participated in the net
ii. List any traffic passed during the net.
iii. Any notable events or comments made during the net ("events" would include equipment failure, interference, etc)
iv. Any operators who checked-in for the first time
Send the report to the Emergency Coordinator (email is fine). Also send a list of people who participated for the first time to the other Net Controllers.
F. Step in and act as Net Control Station if the regularly scheduled Net Controller fails to bring up the net.
a. Perform the same tasks as listed above.
G. Tactical Call Signs may be used at the discretion of the NCS. Normally this is preferable than Amateur Call Signs. The NCS obviously needs to know what Amateur Call Signs are at each location.
H. Message Formats
a. Message formats for non-NTS/MARS will be in plain text. Plain text messages will have a to/from header, message origination time and then a short, concise test message.
b. It is suggested that the NCS assign a Loasion Operator to move formal traffic to and from other nets.
Generic Net Control Script
Prologue
Calling the (Emergency or Training ARES net; Calling the (Emergency or Training Amateur Radio Emergency Services net. This net meets every (Day of Week) at XXXX local time on this repeater for the purpose of training, handling traffic and encouraging amateur participation in emergency communications. All amateur radio operators all welcome to participate.
This is a directed net. All participation will be under the supervision of the Net Control operator. My name is <YOUR NAME>, my call is <YOUR CALL> and I am the Net Control operator.
.
This is <YOUR CALL Vermont ARES Net Control. Anyone wishing to check in, please call now.
Have all stations check into the net and list their traffic or (no traffic)
[Take check ins. Write down call sign, traffic, name, and location.]
Have stations pass traffic in priority order and conduct training scheduled for this net.
When requesting stations to pass traffic the instructions would be “WA1ABC pass your one routine to WA1XYZ”
WA1XYZ would answer with “THIS IS WA1XYZ, OVER” To establish contact with sending station.
WA1ABC would begin traffic with WA1XYZ, THIS IS WA1ABC, MESSAGE FOLLOWS, (Message number) and continue with traffic.
WA1ABC would pass traffic, ending with OVER”
WA1XYZ then would say ” ROGER (Message number), THIS IS WA1XYZ”
[Conclusion]
I would like to thank everyone for participating in tonight's net and for your interest in ARES. I would also like to thank the XXX club for their support and the use of this repeater.
This will conclude the (Emergency or Training) (ARES group) net. I now return the repeater back to normal operation.
This is <YOUR CALL>.
IV. Organization and Assignment of Responsibilities
VT ARES LEADERSHIP POSITIONS
A. Section Manager (SM): Elected official of the ARRL, responsible for the operation of the Section. The Section Manager must approve all Section Appointments.
B. Section Emergency Coordinator (SEC): ARRL leadership official who is appointed by the Section Manager to oversee ARES operations in the Section. The SEC is the primary point of contact of VT ARES for client agencies that are statewide.
C. Assistant Section Emergency Coordinator (ASEC): ARRL leadership official who is responsible for managing specific ARES programs at the direction of the SEC. The SEC appoints this person.
D. District Emergency Coordinator (DEC): A VT leadership official who has responsibility for a District within the Vermont Section. The SEC appoints this person. All appointments must be approved by the Section Manager.
E. Assistant District Emergency Coordinator (ADEC): A VT ARES leadership official who has responsibility for an individual County within a District of the Vermont Section. The SEC or DEC appoints this person. The ADEC would be the primary point of VT ARES for any countywide agencies.
F: Emergency Coordinator (EC): A VT ARES leadership official who has responsibility for a town or region within a Vermont District. The EC is the primary point of contact with local communities/agencies of VT ARES. The SEC or DEC appoints this person.
G. Assistant Emergency Coordinator (AEC): A VT ARES communicator who assists the EC. The EC appoints this person.
H. Net Control Station (NCS): A Vermont ARES member who manages a training or emergency net.
The VT ARES leadership structure is detailed in Appendix A
Note:
Any Member or leader may be stationed at any of the Served Agencies during an Emergency or Training Drill.
V. Plan Development and Maintenance
A. Development
This plan was developed originally by Carl Phillips KC1WH in 2004 and updated by Bob Brown W4YFJ in April of 2006 and scheduled for review by the District Emergency Coordinators during the 2nd Quarter 2006.