Amateur Radio Emergency Service

ARRL's annual simulated emergency test, or SET, is traditionally held in October, but section field organization leaders have the option of scheduling their drills at different time, and that's what's happening in New Hampshire.

Section Public Information Coordinator Skip Cameo, AC1LC, reports that New Ares will be conducting its SET on Saturday, November 7th from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., The scenario will be the ARIES response to a major hurricane that disables cellular service, public safety radio, and amateur radio repeaters through the state.

Participants will focus on passing simulated emergency traffic via FM Simplex and Winlink email, with the goal of passing messages without changes or errors to a simulated state emergency operations center and to a simulated American Red Cross communications center, both in Concord and the state capitol.

In a new release to state media, Cameo notes that the public may see New Hampshire Ares radio operators located at various high elevation points along the side of the roadways in parking lots or other locations that enhance point-to-point radio communication.

New England Digital Voice Traffic Net was launched on October 1st as a welcoming environment in which operators can learn to exchange traffic and prepare written ARRL radiograms.

According to its website, the net is particularly focused on serving those operators who may not be able to get on HF or local nets via RF.

Net participants often include ENCOM volunteers, ARIES members, digital voice operators, and traffic handlers.

The net focuses on standard national traffic system and radio relay international message formatting and voicing for emergency as well as routine traffic.