Simulated Emergency Test 2016

The Ohio Section of the ARRL will hold its annual Simulated Emergency Test (SET) starting on Saturday, October 1, 2016. The Central Ohio Traffic Net (COTN) will be operating starting at 0000 Saturday and ending at 1915 Sunday (all times EDT, UTC-0400). We will be participating with a heavy schedule of special session nets where we move messages as we would in an emergency that impairs telephone and Internet service. An important feature this year is that we're inviting other local traffic nets throughout the Ohio Section to coordinate their efforts with us, to ensure that we've got traffic making its way throughout the Section as we would expect in any emergency of even moderate scale.

We still have openings for net control stations and section net liaison stations. Please see our call for volunteers for detail.

Originating Traffic

Please follow these guidelines for originating traffic:

• 1. Start the text of each message with the words TEST MESSAGE. Those are words one and two, and therefore are to be included in the radiogram check.

  2. Make the text of your message related to a widespread interruption of fuel and food supplies, looting, and relocation and sheltering taking place in response; this year's scenario calls for significant failure of civil services.

  3. Focus on WELFARE traffic, e.g., relocation of affected households.

  4. Use ARRL Numbered Radiograms where appropriate, e.g., ARL FIVE.

Please note: Special session times have been established. We'll hold a total of eleven nets on Saturday and nine on Sunday. Some sessions have been designated to focus on particular operational capabilities, e.g., simplex or digital traffic relay. See the schedule and special instructions for detail.

Please note: Net Control Stations have an additional reporting requirement during SET on top of the usual session report. We have special instructions for conducting nets during SET. Please see that you've read and understand these before SET. Also be sure that if an area of emphasis is noted for your session that you make every effort to follow that instruction, e.g., simplex operation, passing traffic with a digital mode, use of a backup frequency, etc.

Please note: participating stations will need to create radiograms ahead of the SET. See below for a list of stations in the Central Ohio area and beyond to whom you may direct traffic if you'd like to participate in the SET. If you'd like to try digital exchange, please prepare ahead of time.

Send Us Traffic!

Whether in the Ohio Section or not, we welcome your SET traffic. We are looking in particular for TEST WELFARE traffic from individuals out of the area reporting their status to individuals in the area. While happy to relay traffic for agencies, our focus is service directly to members of the public. Feel free to originate traffic and send it to any of our participating stations, shown below. If you are looking for ideas of what to send, consider the samples attached at the bottom of this page. You're welcome to start sending us traffic before the SET begins on October 1; if you're far away you might want to consider sending the traffic on Friday, September 30, so that the message will come to us during our special operating sessions on October 1-2.

Also, if you are sending traffic from Central Ohio and would like to know where you can send your outbound SET traffic, some coordinating stations are working with us. See the "Outside Central Ohio" tab below.

Coordinating Nets

We reached out to other local traffic nets around the Ohio Section.