Drills

Except for areas that are disaster-prone, emergency conditions don't happen very often. This means that amateur radio groups must conduct occasional drills to fine-tune their preparations for emergencies. This page discusses ways that hams might organize drills. Keep in mind, however, that each area is unique and methods of conducting drills used in one area might not work in other areas. Hams must organize and practice techniques that will work for them.

Drills should be simulations of actual disasters, and may affect not only radio operators but other personnel, such as doctors, nurses, police officials, etc. This means, that radio nets must be established and then used during mockups of expected disasters. Information obtained from the simulations is then used to refine the organization of the radio networks.

In general, ham operators have a station in a central location and have stations (fixed, mobile, or both) in other locations. The net-control station will usually be at the central area. For example, a NCS might be established at the place being used as a headquarters by the Red Cross (or other agency providing relief), and other stations might be established at various places, such as schools, used as temporary relief-centers for persons affected by the disaster. Or, if a church is involved in giving help to an area, a station might be organized at the building containing city-wide personnel and other stations at buildings containing local ministers.

In Massachusetts, our local ARES group provided radio communications for an annual soccer tournament in which several hundred teams played concurrent games at over 20 fields in the city. An ambulance was stationed at a school, and that school became the central point of the radio network servicing the tournament. Mobile and portable stations were strategically placed at fields having the games. Stations at the playing fields reported accidents and requested help from the ambulance personnel, and the ambulance was dispatched by the NCS to to the appropriate fields. Later on, our support of the soccer games was refined to have the NCS relay via CB radios requests for ambulance-support to the police dispatcher, and the dispatcher sent the ambulance to the appropriate fields. Our ARES group in Massachusetts was involved in one drill of ambulance personnel using amateur radio equipment. A NCS was established at the triage location, and ham radio operators were placed in ambulances. Even though the ambulance service had its own radio equipment, the only radios used in this drill were amateur radios.

In addition to acting as NCS for the local network, the central station might check into a regional net to provide communications between regional and local officials. If a lot of traffic is involved, separate stations might be used for the local and regional networks.

If the simulations used during drills are close approximations of conditions expected during disasters, the drills can help amateur radio operators to be prepared to assist in real disasters.