Author: BJ Watts

The Olmsted S.E.T. for September 19th is less than a week away. Here are some points of information to plan for.

The county aluminum tower setup is rescheduled for October 3rd at 10:00 AM for ARES training, not this Saturday as previously planned. The national S.E.T. is happening on October 3rd and 4th too.

The drill will start at 9:00 AM and end when the drill is completed or by noon if time allows.
There will be no EOC”s, maned, or ARES trailer used due to covid-19 regulations. All stations will be home base (sub nets, and monitor stations), mobile or portable (field units) for this drill. You will be asked questions for staging information when first checking in. Have your equipment and deployment list available to report in
All three repeaters will be used as follows:

• 147.255 pl 100 repeater is for checking in, for staging for resource requests , and for checking out of the drill. It will also be used for FLdigi information during the net.
• 146.820 pl 100 repeater is for the Olmsted net and sub NCS to send and receive voice information.
• 146.625 pl 100 repeater for emergency information, and over flow traffic from the 146.820 repeater.

VHF simplex frequencies will be used as situations dictate during the drill.
NOTICE: There will be no D-star, DMR, or Fusion modes used during this drill, only digital programs on VHF analog frequencies.
The programs that will be used are, FLdigi for multi county information resource and documentation , APRS for field units tracking and messaging (by phone app or by GPS radio), GRlevel monitoring for weather
monitoring, and monitoring the local ARMOR system for training purposes.
“IF” time and activities allow emails will be sent to hams stations by radio when requested.
NIMM’s protocol and ICS procedures and forms should be used, but not mandatory for those new to ARES listen to your NCS and have your go kit will be sufficient to use.

Field units will be requested for situation damage reports (TBD) by voice for Olmsted county. These will be explained to you by your net control operator on what to look for, evaluate, and report on.
We will discuss this further on tonight’s ARES net on the 147.255 repeater and again on the FLdigi net this Thursday evening at 6:30 PM also on the 147.255 repeater.