Seattle ACS and the King County MST Team will be conducting a field exercise on Saturday morning May 31, 2008 and invite members and non-members to play.  This will be a cold-start, full field deployment drill.  The EOC will activate and send a page notification to members and bring up the check-in and assignment net on the PSRG 146.96 repeater at approximately 9:00 AM.   The exercise is based on a communications disaster caused by a large magnitude earthquake which knocks out all conventional communications systems.

Ham radio operators desiring to participate will be checked-in and registered by badge number on 146.96, as assignments become available they will be dispatched to a real field location to set up a portable radio station and establish a communications post out side of a designated facility.  Field posts will communicate with the EOC on designated area UHF repeaters.  Non-ACS/MST members will be moved off to a designated UHF repeater so they can be registered as a temporary State Emergency Worker for the duration of the event and then assigned a post. 

Once communications posts are established participants are urged to generate damage assessment and service request messages directed to the EOC.  We want to insure that a range of priority levels messages e.g. 1, 2 and 3 are sent, so EOC operators gain experience managing the traffic flow.  We will be using voice and AirMail VHF Packet.  We really encourage Hams to ready their equipment so we can have several Packet stations deployed. 

The Seattle EOC’s Communications and Warning Center will also be participating in EOC to EOC exercise #18 which is scheduled for that same date and time.  This should add some challenges and opportunities to spice things up.  We also are looking to invite some neighboring jurisdictions to join in as mutual aid participants.

This exercise will be a whole lot of fun and a chance for us to all practice what we talk about.  So MST, ACS and other area Hams – please put this on your calendar and plan to join in.  More information will be released as we get closer to the event. 

The exercise is being planned by Brian Daly, Bob Helling and Mark Sheppard – we will distribute the draft plan to the Leadership Team and Grant Tietje, OEM Exercise Coordinator for review.  If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please contact Mark at his e-mail.