In the area where I previously lived, I had been an active amateur radio operator with the local club from late August of 2009 until I moved to Benton County, Missouri in April of 2017. Every fall when the Simulated Emergency Test (SET) would come around, I would ask if I could help. I was told that the members of the club participating in the SET didn’t see a way I could help because the information was given to you as messages in envelopes. Then you had to read the message and follow its instructions. This club had tested me for my Tech license and, in the end, three times for my General license. But at that point each year, I didn’t feel very welcome for the exercise.
I moved to Benton County, Missouri in April of 2017, and found the Benton County ARES in July. In September of 2018, Roger Wiltz, KC0OXO, offered to give me a ride, and we represented the BC ARES at a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) class being taught in the evenings over the month. There, I met Scott Anderson, KJ4MFW, who was helping to work Benton County into the Johnson County, Missouri SET. I told him and my county’s Emergency Coordinator, Sam Henley, KE0LMY, what had happened previously when I would offer to participate in the SET. They saw no reason why I couldn’t participate. Scott said that he had previously worked with 501c3 compliance, so he already had an idea how to write up my information. I told him what file types are best for my older BrailleNote and asked Sam if she could give him my e-mail address when he was ready for it. At this time my radio and computer were in different rooms, so it would take me a minute or two longer to get the files transferred, but that was my situation to work around. I ended up making an emergency trip up to the Kansas City area which had me returning on the morning of the SET, so I didn’t end up participating last year.
This year [2019], when it came time to get ready for the SET, the Benton County ARES decided to do our own, with the help of the BC CERT and Emergency Management Agency (EMA). I immediately volunteered that I would do whatever job was available.
In late September, I received a Google document from Sam which included my scripts for the SET. Our scenario was that there had been an earthquake in New Madrid and 300 to 400 people were coming through our county on their way north through the state. I was to be the backup Net Control Operator. I also relayed a message to the Net Control Operator, Roger Henley, KD0WXT, as if I had checked in with the Red Cross.
I saved this Google document as a Word file in a Dropbox folder I have for ham radio-related files. Then, because I knew that it would be too new of a file for the BrailleNote mPower, I saved it as a Braille file using the free Braille translator Braille Blaster. Sam had the full script online as a PDF document. Because this was my first exercise ever, I wanted to make following along as easy as possible for myself. I asked Sam if she could send me a text file version of the script for the net. I loaded these files into my BrailleNote on Friday afternoon and then opened my file for logging to make a note of how the order of information would be entered on each line.
On the morning of the exercise, October 12, I was all set with my Kenwood TMV71A and BrailleNote mPower. I paid attention as each of the teams initially checked in with Roger. This helped me to know which person was in what city as I took down their recheck information later as backup Net Control. When I acted as Net Control, I noted which team checked in, that it was a recheck, their message, and the time for each check-in. For these entries, I wrote in a form of uncontracted Braille called Computer Braille. I used this so the callsigns would come out correctly if I translated the file. The thing I had the most difficulty knowing was when and how to turn the net back over to Roger. The first time I heard someone check in with a tactical callsign I thought of their personal callsign. I had to remind myself that until further notice they weren’t using their own callsign.
I have asked if I could come in next year and be part of one of the teams. I said during a round table we had on October 13 that I’d be happy even if I was a team’s radio operator. I asked this so I could learn about other parts of an exercise and how they do the job.
I’d like to thank the Benton County ARES for letting me participate in the SET exercise this year. I would also like to thank Renee Cason, KE0LMZ for proofreading and editing this document.
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