Seattle:  Emergency radio communications will be tested this weekend in a Western Washington Simulated Emergency Test (SET) by amateur radio members of the Seattle Auxiliary Communications Service (ACS), a group of unpaid communication professionals dedicated to assisting the City of Seattle in times of disaster and community needs.

The SET will be held Saturday, October 7th and will test the Seattle ACS group’s ability to respond to a communications failure caused by a simulated weather emergency, following unseasonable severe snow and ice storms in the Seattle area, which have affected many streets and downed phone and power lines.  During the exercise the Seattle ACS will test a computer assisted callout for members and establish networks for radio communications, after the Seattle Office of Emergency Management declares an emergency test for the weather event. The drill will take part at the cities Emergency Operations Center and various locations in the city.

The exercise will test the ACS group’s ability to enhance communications for the Seattle Transportation and Public Utilities Department using amateur radio frequencies in the UHF/VHF bands, according to Joel Ware (KD7QKK), ACS Incident Commander for the event.

Also being tested will be the use of the Washington State, Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) plan and the Western Washington Emergency Communications plan for effective traffic handling with in six districts using regional and section radio nets, according to Joel Ware. The drill will have some twists and turns with lost communications networks to test the skills of the volunteer radio members to activate additional back up systems for the Seattle ACS group during the exercise according to Joel Ware.

The design team for this years Seattle exercise is Joel Ware, Boone Barker (KC7RK), Mark Sheppard (N7LYE), Hal Mueller (KE7BYN), George Boswell (K7YHB), Bill Dockstader (W7LSK) with Brian Daly (WB7OML) as Safety Officer and Mike Tyler (KE7DIF) for Technical radio support.

For more information about Seattle ACS organization and membership see the group’s Internet site http://wwwseattleacs.com/

The SET is an annual, nationwide event sponsored by  ARRL, the national association  for Amateur Radio, to test the amateur radio response for emergency communications.

Contact information: Dave Mann (KD7ZYM), 206 365-9700, PIO for the ACS.