Category Archives: MARS

Latest MARS Exercise Instructions

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MARSAt this time, we are being asked to reach out to amateurs and capture the following information. There may be MARS operators gathering this sort of information using their amateur callsigns on amateur frequencies, or on 60 meters using their MARS callsigns looking for Amateurs station reports.

  • Status of 50KW AM broadcast stations: This is for all of the stations in this category in New England. Are they on the air? Need county and city of reporting station.
  • Ping Time to 8.8.8.8. Bring up a command prompt and ping that IP address. The result is an average ping time. Report that, ISP name, town.
  • Grid Status: Report power voltage, frequency, power company name, city and county
  • Dialtone: Provider name, Local, Long Distance, type (landline, VOIP) city and county
  • NOAA Weather broadcasts on about 162 MHz: Report which frequencies that you can hear reports on, City and county you are located in.
  • Infrastructure reports: Any known failures of infrastructure: Water, power communications, broadcast, hospital, sewage etc, City and County.

The exercise culminates next Saturday night with a 60 meter broadcast.

The exercise takes a hiatus on Monday November 11, in honor of Veterans Day, and resumes on Tuesday.

Nationwide MARS COMEX (Comms. Exercise) Oct 24 – 26

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MARS stations will be operating from Oct 22-26, but the participation of Amateur Radio Operators is expected on Oct 24-26.

Here is a link to the national ARRL story on it:
http://www.arrl.org/news/mars-members-to-support-defense-department-radio-communication-readiness-exercise

As part of this COMEX, MARS members will reach out to amateur radio operators (on the 24-26) for any information on real life infrastructure failures. We have been practicing this sort of reporting as part of both Western and Eastern Mass ARES nets. If there are any know local failures of infrastructure, defined as Power, Water, Medical, Sanitation, Communications or Transportation, just let the MARS operator know with information on your county name, or your zip code (which is easy to determine county name with).

MARS Operators will use non-internet connected VHF/UHF repeaters as well as 60 meter channel 1 in our area, to gather these reports.

Amateur Radio operators are asked to monitor 60-meter channel 1 (5,330.5 kHz, USB) at 0001 UTC (8:01pm ET) on October 24, for a high-power broadcast of updated information regarding this exercise and how the Amateur Radio community can participate.

Questions about this local to the Western and Eastern Mass ARRL sections can be directed towards me.

Thanks,
Tom Kinahan N1CPE

Communications Interoperability Training with Amateur Radio Community Set

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Elements of the US Department of Defense (DOD) will conduct a “communications interoperability” training exercise November 4-6, once again simulating a “very bad day” scenario. Amateur Radio and MARS organizations will take part.

“This exercise will begin with a national massive coronal mass ejection event which will impact the national power grid as well as all forms of traditional communication, including landline telephone, cellphone, satellite, and Internet connectivity,” Army MARS Program Manager Paul English, WD8DBY, explained in an announcement.

During the exercise, a designated DOD Headquarters entity will request county-by-county status reports for the 3,143 US counties and county equivalents, in order to gain situational awareness and to determine the extent of impact of the scenario. Army and Air Force MARS organizations will work in conjunction with the Amateur Radio community, primarily on the 60-meter interoperability channels as well as on HF NVIS frequencies and local VHF and UHF, non-Internet linked Amateur Radio repeaters.

Again this year, a military station on the east coast and the Fort Huachuca, Arizona, HF station will conduct a high-power broadcast on 60-meter channel 1 (5330.5 kHz) on Saturday from 0300 to 0315 UTC. New this year will be an informational broadcast on Sunday, on 13,483.5 kHz USB from 1600 to 1615 UTC. Amateur Radio operators should monitor these broadcasts for more information about the exercise and how they can participate in this communications exercise, English said.

“We want to continue building on the outstanding cooperative working relationship with the ARRL and the Amateur Radio community,” English said. “We want to expand the use of the 60-meter interop channels between the military and amateur community for emergency communications, and we hope the Amateur Radio community will give us some good feedback on the use of both the 5-MHz interop and the new 13-MHz broadcast channels as a means of information dissemination during a very bad day scenario.

MARS to Conduct Interoperability Exercise with Amateur Radio Community

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MARSFrom 30 October through 1 November, members of the Military Auxiliary Radio System will be conducting a quarterly Department of Defense Contingency Communications exercise. The purpose of this quarterly exercise is train on our ability to provide communications following a “very bad day” scenario when traditional forms of communications will likely be unavailable. While the simultaneous loss of all communications nation-wide is not likely, for training purposes, we are assuming there has been a massive nation-wide outage.

One of the objectives of this exercise is to continue the partnership with the amateur radio community to help provide information about local conditions and send this information to the Department of Defense to help understand what is happening around the United States.

During this exercise, we will use 60 meters, local VHF and UHF repeaters as well as HF NVIS amateur radio bands. Our goal is to have a conversation about the local conditions in and around your county. During the conversation, our operators will be asking basic questions such as the status of commercial power, public water systems, and road conditions. These will be person to person conversations…you don’t need to use any digital modes or know any special messaging formats.

To kick off this exercise, we are encouraging the amateur radio community to monitor 5,330.5KHz from 0300-0400 Hrs Zulu on 31 October. During this hour, we will be doing a high power voice broadcast from a military station on the east coast and alternate with a voice broadcast from the west coast. Amateur radio operators are encouraged to submit a reception report as indicated in the voice broadcast.

For the remainder of the exercise, MARS personnel will be calling for amateur radio operators on the 60 meter channels as well as using already established amateur radio nets on HF NVIS and VHF/UHF repeaters.

Amateur radio operators are also invited to attend the ARRL webinar scheduled for 25 Oct at 2000 hrs eastern time where Dave Stapchuk, Chief AF MARS, and the Army MARS Program Manager will give a presentation about the MARS program. Please register for the webinar here.

Additional information is on the U.S. Army MARS Facebook page.

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