Learning Unit 3 - Communication Organizations

Objectives: Following completion of this Learning Unit, you will be able to define the terms ARES, RACES, SKYWARN, and NTS. You will also learn how these organizations are interactive.

Information:

I. Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES)

The Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) consists of licensed amateurs who have voluntarily registered their qualifications and equipment for communications duty in the public service when disaster strikes. Every licensed amateur, regardless of membership in ARRL or any other local or national organization is eligible for membership in the ARES. The only qualification, other than possession of an Amateur Radio license, is a sincere desire to serve. ARES is an amateur service, and as such, only amateurs are eligible for membership. The possession of emergency-powered equipment is desirable, but is not a requirement for membership.

A. Operation and Flexibility

We have discussed what a typical ARES unit is made up of. Just what shape the plan in your locality will take depends on what your Emergency Coordinator (EC) has to work with. An EC uses what he/she has, and leaves provision in the plan for what he/she hopes, wants and is trying to get. Flexibility is the keynote. The personnel, equipment and facilities available today may not be available tomorrow; conversely, what is lacking today may be available tomorrow. In any case, bear in mind that organizing and planning are not a one-person task.

The EC is simply the leader, or, as the title indicates, the coordinator. His/her effectiveness inevitably will depend on what kind of a group he/she has to work with; that is, on you and your cohorts. Make yourself available to your EC as a member of his planning committee, or in any capacity for which you think you are qualified. Local ARES operation will usually take the form of nets - HF nets, VHF (repeater) nets, even RTTY, packet or other special-mode nets, depending on need and resources available. Your EC should know where your particular interests lie, so that you can be worked in where your special talents will do the most good.

It is not always possible to use the services of all ARES members. While it is general policy that no ARES member must belong to any particular club or organization to participate in the program, local practical considerations may be such that you cannot be used. This is a matter that has to be decided by your EC. In some cases, even personality conflicts can cause difficulties; for example, the EC may decide that he cannot work with a particular person. In this case the local ARES would be better served by excluding that person. This is a judgment that the EC would have to make. While personality conflicts should be avoided, they do arise. The EC on the job must take the responsibility for making such subjective evaluations, just as the SEC and DEC must evaluate the effectiveness of the job being done by the EC.

At Hall County ARES, we have enacted a couple of basic rules that seem to keep the ship sailing in smoother water.  First is that we check our politics at the door.  While we are all entitled to our personal political beliefs these have nothing to do with serving our communities in time of need.  Even at our meetings and training events we should refrain from talking about politics even with our friends within the group.

The same can be said for other controversial subjects.  While we should not abandon our own personal religious faiths, pushing ours opinions in group meetings can be counter productive.  We are not saying to abandon your faith.  If you feel the need to put a Bible in your go-kit or pray over a meal, go for it.  Just don’t be confrontational with team members or served agency personnel when representing Hall County ARES.  We have all joined the EmCom community out of a desire to serve and we need to dwell on our common goals not difference in beliefs.

B. ARES Operation during Emergencies and Disasters Operation in an emergency net is little different from operation in any other net, requiring special preparation and training. This includes training in processing written messages. This is generally known as "traffic handling." Handling traffic is covered in detail in the ARRL Operating Manual. This is required reading for all ARES members-in fact, for all amateurs aspiring to participate in disaster communications.  Hall ARES provides our members with training and electronic manuals for most standard traffic handling techniques.  A copy of these in your go-kit is not just recommended, but manatory.

II. ARES and RACES

After World War II, it became evident that the international political situation was destined to be tense. The need for some civil-defense measures became apparent. The Civil Defense program was designated to head up a program that would call upon amateur representatives to participate. In the discussions that followed, amateurs were interested in getting two points across: First, that Amateur Radio had a potential for and capability of playing a major role in this program; and second, that our participation should, this time as never before, be in our own name, as an Amateur Radio Service, even if and after war should break out.

These principles were included in the planning by the formulation of regulations creating a new branch of the amateur service, the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service, RACES. Recognition of the role of Amateur Radio as a public service means responsibility-this time in our own name. The RACES regulations are printed in full in the ARRL publication the FCC Rule Book, along with the rest of the amateur regulations. Every amateur should study closely and become familiar with these rules; civil preparedness, now a major function, may become our only on-the-air function if we are plunged into war. In Georgia, a decision has been made in working with the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA) to only use the ARES structure. However, to better understand the total emergency communications structure, information about RACES is included.

A. What is RACES?

RACES is administered by local, county and state emergency management agencies. It is supported by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and is a part of the Amateur Radio Service that provides radio communications for civil-preparedness purposes only. During periods of local, regional or national civil emergencies, this system may be activated. These emergencies are not limited to war-related activities, but can include natural disasters such as fires, floods and earthquakes. As defined in the rules, RACES is a radio communication service, conducted by volunteer licensed amateurs, designed to provide emergency communications to local or state civil-preparedness agencies. It is important to note that RACES operation is authorized by emergency management officials only, and this operation is strictly limited to official civil-preparedness activity in the event of an emergency-communications situation. While RACES was originally based on potential use for wartime, it has evolved over the years, as has the meaning of civil defense (which is also called civil preparedness), to encompass all types of emergencies.

B. ARES and RACES Cooperation Although RACES and ARES are separate entities; the ARRL advocates dual membership and cooperative efforts between both groups whenever possible for an ARES group whose members are all enrolled in and certified by RACES to operate in an emergency with great flexibility. Using the same operators and the same frequencies, an ARES group also enrolled as RACES can "switch hats" from ARES to RACES and RACES to ARES to meet the requirements of the situation as it develops. For example, during an "undeclared emergency," ARES can operate under ARES, but when an emergency or disaster is officially declared by a state or federal authority, the operation can become RACES with no change in personnel or frequencies. This organizational structure is still not well understood and practiced in parts of the United States.

Where ARES and RACES still exist separately, emergency officials will have to determine the situation in their own area. Where there is currently no RACES, it would be a simple matter for an ARES group to enroll in that capacity, after a presentation to the civil-preparedness authorities. In cases where both ARES and RACES exist, it is possible to join both or to be involved in either. As time progresses, the goal would be the merger into one strong organization, with coordination between ARES and RACES officials using the same groups of amateurs. This dual-hatted approach is currently in place in many parts of the United States.

Another group of volunteer radio communicators you will want to be familiar with are MARS personnel.  While Army, Navy and Air Force MARS operators work outside the boundaries and constraints of F.C.C. Part 97 rules, many of your ARES counterparts will have MARS affiliations.  Many of them will have modified ham radio equipment that will transmit outside of Part 97 amateur radio frequency guidelines so be aware that if your using someone else’s radio, you may want to ask if it has had any MARS modifications made to it.

III. The National Traffic System

The National Traffic System plan is a means for systematizing amateur traffic handling facilities by making a structure available for an integrated traffic facility designed to achieve the utmost in two principal objectives: rapid movement of traffic from origin to destination, and training amateur operators to handle written traffic and participate in directed nets. These two objectives, which sometimes conflict with each other, are the underlying foundations of the National Traffic System.

Hall County ARES wants its operators to be familiar with NTS techniques but we are not currently pushing this as a primary method of message handling.  Our current list of served agencies all encourage the use of ICS-213 message forms.  We do provide our operators with NTS message handling manuals for use in the field in case you need to pass NTS forms and your familiarization with these messages is weak.

IV. SKYWARN

Often referred to as the "eyes and ears" of the National Weather Service (NWS), SKYWARN is the organization of trained spotters and communicators who voluntarily watch, track and report unusual weather activity. (See http://www.skywarn.org)

Hall ARES has the responsibility of running the SKYWARN program for Hall County as do many other regional ARES groups for their EMA directors.  We encourage all of our operators to take SKYWARN training but it is not required.