Drill Update!!

Utah RACES / AUXCOMM Functional Exercise - 7 November 2020

Purpose

The purpose of this Utah RACES / AUXCOMM Functional Exercise is to provide Utah RACES volunteers the opportunity to develop on-the-air skills and experience participating in a structured net. It will also allow the Utah RACES Officer to validate assigned RACES volunteers and assigned RACES numbers against the approved RACES roster.

Requirements

1. Prepare a personal ICS-205, Incident Radio Communications Plan for this exercise.

2. Initiate and maintain an ICS 214A, Activity Log (Individual) for this exercise.

3. Find a suitable RF path into the Western Reflector channel 7 (9257). This may be the same path you use to check into the regular RACES VHF/UHF/VoIP net such as the SINBAD system, the Intermountain Intertie System or by connecting to the EchoLink DCF-ARC Conference server which is bridged full time to the Western Reflector channel 7.

4. Be on frequency and ready to monitor Net Control at 10:00 am MST Saturday, November 7th.

5. Precisely follow the Net Control instructions for checking into and participating in the net.

6. Stay on frequency and monitor the net until net control releases all participants and closes the net.

Preparation

1. Set up and test your radio equipment in advance of the exercise.

2. If you do not have the required ICS forms, search online, locate, download, and print the two ICS Forms listed in the requirements above.

Follow-up

1. Complete and file your ICS forms in your RACES / AUXCOMM file folder as validation of your participation in the exercise for future AUXCOMM credit. Your participation in this functional exercise will also be recorded for credit by net control.

2. Be sure that you read and respond, if required, to all alerts and notifications from the ReadyOp system we now use to register all RACES / AUXCOMM volunteers.

Note: All documentation instructions above are for RACES volunteers that are also planning on completing the Utah AUXCOMM program. Any other RACES volunteers only need to participate in the net but may fill out the forms for the added training and experience. Download and print this document and keep for reference prior to net then file with your other forms.

P.S. From my own experience, 449.425 is a good one to try for this area for the western reflector. Very clear for me, and I don't see that in the other frequencies. But that is just my two cents.