This article is to bring information to future ARES / EmComm groups in Ontario or elsewhere who may be asked to provide their radio interoperability service to an upcoming Joint Volunteer NGO Field Exercise in your area, to learn from this first effort, so you can benefit from what was experienced here and take note of the lessons learned. It was challenging to ramp up, completely different from normal local EmComm Ops, it was a long & slow learning curve until a communications plan was put in place. Where the exercise had some disconnects, some impromptu innovations were put in place with some measured success, but overall it was a fun and learning experience for all participants and observers.

    This was a unique Emergency Management Joint Volunteer NGO (EM-JV-NGOs) Field Exercise that took place in rural areas of both Ottawa and separately in Gatineau. For Ontario the location was at ‘Pinhey’s Point Park’ near Dunrobin and in Quebec it was near Aylmer. This was the first of its kind in Ontario and the 5th for PQ. The information here describes the exercise operation from the Ontario perspective.

    The exercise scenario was where a large earthquake of 6.0 occurred in the Ottawa River between cities of Gatineau & Ottawa. There was much damage in the two cities and that emergency responders would look after search & rescue within the affected areas of the cities and that trained volunteer NGOs would look after the search & rescue operations in the rural & forested areas. Several victims were either lost or injured and that mass casualties were expected.

    The concept of this exercise was to allow the volunteer organizations to demonstrate their operational capabilities jointly, by providing an effective response to the scenario of a large-scale earthquake, which has impacted the National Capital Region. The participating groups plan out and execute a response utilizing their own command structures and resources, deploying air, land and marine search & rescue volunteer teams to respond to simulated causalities.

    An Official Letter of Invitation to this event was sent out within and adjacent to the Ottawa area, to Municipal officials, Emergency Management officials, Political officials and the press, to observe this event and for a media conference that would be held at noon. This did bring a certain amount of visibility in the eyes and ears of officials and the media. Amateur Radio would have a chance to be noticed as a volunteer NGO and what deployed EmComm public service is about.

    The volunteer NGOs involved were: The Canadian St-Johns Ambulance Ottawa, Salvation Army, Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary, Canadian Forces Rescue Coordination Center, CASARA (Civilian Aviation Search and Rescue), OSARVA (Ottawa Search and Rescue Volunteer Association), EXRSIM (Exercise Simulation Software), Team Rubicon, and ARES / EmComm group volunteers from various parts of Eastern Ontario. A Renfrew County Emergency Management, a Canadian Red Cross, Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) had Margaret – VA3VXN, each as a VIP observer representative, along with a few others, were given multiple guided tours throughout the day.

    This Field Exercise would require ARES / EmComm radio operators from many Eastern Ontario groups to provide Radio Interoperability to the EM-JV-NGOs exercise operations in the field. As a result and prior to event date the ARES / EmComm District Mutual Aid call for help was invoked (see form below) by Ottawa ARES / EMRG sending a call for help (in the spirit of the upcoming exercise) to all groups’ leadership that are adjacent to City of Ottawa. Each responding group leadership was required to indicate who they were sending in response with ETA to the Ottawa group’s staging area. Responding volunteer Radio Ops were required to first fill ‘in triplicate’ their personal ID / contact information including next of Kin on the District Mutual Aid Plan (DMAP) registration / tracking form, with one copy left with their group’s leadership or club exec, before deploying to the Ottawa staging area, so they know who was being deployed. One copy of this form is to be surrendered on arrival at the staging area event ARES registration tent, where each radio ops responder will be briefed with situational details, and receive each their assignment. The 3rd copy of the DMAP form remains on their person at all times until they return home and inform their local leadership that they have returned home safely from their deployment. As not all groups had this form on hand, the registration tent had blank copies available.

    Each volunteer NGO had their Radio Comms and jargon on different frequencies and not all were on the same band or on the same mode (AM/FM), hence the need for Interoperability. One codeword may mean something totally different to someone else, so plain language was encouraged to avoid any confusion and encryption. Both full day exercise events (ON & PQ) were operating seperatly in each their 2 square kilometer area, which was rather small for radio interoperability. ARES role was to supplement the NGOs by providing a common communications capability to a central point at the Incident Command. An area-wide Amateur Radio Net Control Station using a Communications Trailer provided Comms through the Emergency Operations Center (EOC).

    The Amateur Radio Operations tent was co-located with the EOC to pass immediate radio traffic to the Incident Commander. In addition, the EXRSIM team was on location with their Exercise Software Platform, which was used to track and plot immediate locations of all involved as well as area coverage displaying this data on a large screen for immediate situational awareness.

    In a real situation, ARES / EmComm can play a major roll in the establishment of communications with reliable passing of (radiogram) information when and where needed. Searches were conducted, casualties were found & treated and volunteers got fed. More importantly, links were formed between NGOs and people, providing many ‘Lessons Learned’. An on site initial debrief took place and weeks later a more comprehensive debrief took place – see below.

EM-JV-NGOs Field Exercise Comprehensive Debrief Report for Amateur Radio – RAC/ARES

    How to improve interoperability service with other NGOs – lessons learned

    The many On-line steering committee meetings helped, but more “In Person” meetings prior to the event were needed to workout problems and make better plans. Prepare the plan better and sooner, so that it can be implemented in a timely fashion. The video conferences were long and did not easily show the way forward to Radio Interoperability.

    A solid presentation on what Amateur Radio can do is vital to help the other volunteer NGOs see how we (ARES) can fit into their plans, if at all. Each group needs to understand the functionality of each other NGO group and the organizers need to have a better understanding of each participating faction, so that a better plan for interoperability can be established.

    At the outset of any exercise there needs to be tasks for everyone involved. Many Amateurs had no clear definition of a task and therefore had nothing to do and only a very few performing a few tasks. Amateurs with no task were later assigned in pairs to go to specific areas around the exercise site, report and stand by.

    We need a way to determine the level of experience of amateurs as they arrive for assignment. We can ask them what events they have worked before, and use that as a proxy for competence. Lesser experienced radio ops can be assigned to shadow the more experience operators and guided through the exercise.

    In such a small exercise area, Amateurs can only provide interoperability if all other Comms in the field would fail, essentially. We could have provided communications back to a distant centralized area outside the main exercise location, but the need was not there. Range wise, Search & Rescue hand held radios were just as good as ours in this close operational proximity.

    Groups were too tightly spaced physically and tents could have been spread out over a larger area to be more realistic. More space was needed between the event coordination ‘Exercise inputs Control/Wizards’ and those tasked to respond to the dynamic changing events ‘Operations Control or EOC’.

    Many thanks go to ALL of the ARES / EmComm exercise participants who were: Arthur – VA3BIT, Tyler – VA3DGN, Roger – VA3EGY, Gilles – VA3GJB, Jeff – VA3ISP, Ian – VA3KCP, GC Lance – VA3LP, Jeffrey – VA3PEW, Richard – VA3RLA, Raj – VA3RZT, Stuart – VA3SIO, Thane – VA3TTM, Margaret – VA3VXN, Harry – VA3ZAK, AEC Mike – VE3FFK, GC Steve – VE3FTS, Harrie – VE3HYS, Donald – VE3IGN, Michael – VE3KOY, Fred – VE3LAF, Neil – VE3PUE, Ken – VE3SRS, Mike – VE3UMC, GC Richard – VE3UNW, Alan – VE3VTT, Alan – VE3ZTU and Joe Laberge – no callsign.
Also – these people participated remotely: SM Michael Hickey – VE3IPC observed the event for the duration from home QTH, who volunteered to relay for EmComm operations that was on 146.940 MHz to 146.880 MHz EMRG’s Repeater – to make repeated request for 2nd shift volunteers, as part of the exercise. As a result; Shawn – VA3GFY, Roger – VE3NPO and Ron – VA2BRR did volunteer (in the spirit of the exercise) to serve on the 2nd shift for operations.
Douglas – VE3YDK (part of St. John Ambulance team), Michel – VE2BCW (Gatineau exercise EmComm Coordinator), Kenneth – VE3KGO (Observer from Home).
[Article by SM Michael Hickey – Served as a member of the Emergency Management Volunteer Joint NGO Field Exercise (2 shores) steering committee starting in early March 2019 for the Ontario side.]
PHOTOS: