Members of the New Hampshire Amateur Radio Emergency Service will conduct an annual Simulated Emergency Test on Saturday November 1.
Modern communication systems, cellular, landline and internet capabilities have become integral parts of every day life and the public has become dependent on this infrastructure to provide those services. When all else fails, amateur radio gets through.
ARES communicators are trained and federally licensed amateur radio operators who utilize their own radio equipment to provide a valuable auxiliary communication capability to emergency services agencies, all at no cost. ARES groups throughout the country routinely activate their members to respond to communication outages due to hurricanes, floods, wild fires, tornadoes and earthquakes.
Members of the New Hampshire ARES groups will be operating their amateur radio, also more commonly known as ham radio, equipment from their home bases or deploying to various locations throughout the state. The public may observe radio operators utilizing portable hand held radios, from vehicle mounted mobile radios or from Go Boxes that are portable base stations with more extensive communication capabilities that may be deployed in public areas, higher terrain and outside key municipal buildings to test their operational capabilities. Message handling will involve relaying messages from different parts of the state to the New Hampshire Emergency Operations Center and the American Red Cross through a relay site in Bow using only ham radios.
The SET will be based on simulating the recovery phase of a major event or incident that caused widespread damage to New Hampshire’s communication infrastructure.
Goals range from testing message handling skills of ARES ham radio operators to testing various high-point relay sites’ ability to reach Bow command relay site.
The exercise starts at 8 a.m. and concludes at 1 p.m. For more information, visit nh-ares.org/.
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