Pages: 1 [2] 3   Go Down

Author Topic: MARS Exercise the Week of 8 November 2015  (Read 50205 times)

W6EM

  • Member
  • Posts: 1944
RE: MARS Exercise the Week of 8 November 2015
« Reply #15 on: October 25, 2015, 06:19:24 PM »

MARS has become antiquated and obsolete. I was in Navy and Army MARS for over 20 years.

I guess with that attitude it's probably good that you've moved on.  The MARS services are experiencing new life and new missions supporting the DoD and homeland security in general.  If all you want to get out of it is a bunch of old timers reminiscing about the good old days (like you probably get to do on the 75 meter nets), MARS is not the place for you.  There's no doubt that crotchety old men are averse to change, but those guys will get pushed out of the way in time.  I'm sure they'll show up here complaining about how bad MARS has become.

I can hear them now....

"Heck, did you know that MARS isn't even using amateur modes on the MARS freqs anymore?  We're being forced to learn a military mode and now they've pushed CW to the back of the pack.  Everyone knows CW is the original digital mode and it'll get the message through when nothing else will.  Who cares of the military doesn't use CW!"

Know what I mean?

Brad
Perhaps, sometime along your life's pathway you will learn that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.  Not a circle or a trapezoid.

Overcomplicating pathways in a crisis, for the sake of protocol and hierarchy, can result in delays just when delays have a price.  Perhaps at a cost of more than just lost time.

We don’t know what the future holds.  But, if we examine past events, such as Hurricane Katrina, it was clear that boots-on-the-ground amateurs did some fine things.  And, they weren’t, to my knowledge, MARS, CAP, or CG Auxiliary members or even organized ARES or RACES.  They just, thankfully, happened to be in the right place at the right time.

If the hierarchy of DoD truly wants to utilize the experience and knowledge of the amateur community effectively, it should employ an amateur radio auxiliary to assist in its training and deployment of its HF radio systems by the various branches.  Its mission: To provide assistance and support to the military application of radio systems.  Maybe even do, at little to no cost to DoD, what some contractor field service folks now do at a significant cost.   
Logged

WD8DBY

  • Member
  • Posts: 139
RE: MARS Exercise the Week of 8 November 2015
« Reply #16 on: November 10, 2015, 01:36:21 PM »

MARS Exercise to Simulate a Coronal Mass Ejection;
Collaborate with Amateur Radio During Aftermath


"Beginning the week of 8 November, MARS will participate in a
quarterly contingency HF exercise in support of the Department
of Defense (DOD)...."

Fellow Amateur Radio Operators,

Thanks to everyone who was able to participate in the DOD-MARS-Amateur Radio Exercise from 8-10 Nov.  We appreciate your support and efforts in helping to achieve the training objective of contacting as many of the 3,142 US counties during this exercise via radio only means.  We are still compiling the results of how many counties were contacted.

I am now collecting After Action Report comments and recommendations for how to improve our processes of reaching out to the amateur radio community during these types of exercises.

I have already received a few comments and am interested to hear if there are other comments or recommendations, both good and bad, for how to improve this process.

Here are my thoughts on what I need to improve:

1.  We need to better integrate MARS operators into their local ARES/RACES organizations locally, so they already know when and where your nets regularly meet and how to get ahold of you.  We are also considering the need to plan for MARS operators to monitor specific RACES CPG 1-15 frequencies, the 5MHz interop channels, or maybe the HF-ALE channels, then announce monitoring windows and specific frequencies where we can be reached.

2.  The way I structured the coordinating correspondence for the exercise was too cumbersome.  This required an initial coordination email from me to you and copied a MARS Region Director who then had to appoint someone to contact you and then figure out when and where your regularly scheduled nets operate.  I know in some cases, the follow on linkup didn't occur due to a number of factors.  The initial email should contain the information from #1 above to give you certainty from the outset of what the link up plan will be.  For those that were not contacted, I apologize for my lack of a more succinct plan for how to do this coordination. 

3. Because of the way I structured the coordination, I had to cut off coordination several days prior to Startex which left at least 30 amateur Radio Operators out of the exercise.  I need to have a better coordination plan so there is no cutoff - so that if you are able to participate, just jump in and contribute.   

Again, thanks for your interest in this exercise. My hope is that we can continue to improve this process and make coordination for these types of exercise more routine.  I also want to consider scheduling a MARS exercise in conjunction with already established amateur radio exercises such as annual simulated emergency test exercise to give us more opportunities to train together in the future.

I look forward to reading your comments.


v/r


Paul 
Logged

KC2QYM

  • Member
  • Posts: 958
RE: MARS Exercise the Week of 8 November 2015
« Reply #17 on: November 25, 2015, 05:46:35 AM »

I guess I'm a little confused by what the exercise is supposed to prove.  Depending on the propagation affect by the CME and its severity level, how can you judge the efficiency of your operational status and station links.  There's no true way to project who can communicate to whom.  Seems it should just be called an exercise to evaluate how many of your MARS affiliates can get on the air if called upon. How can you evaluate how effective your communications will be if a CME event really occurs.  This seems sort of silly to me or perhaps you're just trying to prove to your masters that MARS is still relevant with this unscientific activity.
Logged

AFA6MD

  • Member
  • Posts: 31
RE: MARS Exercise the Week of 8 November 2015
« Reply #18 on: November 28, 2015, 10:54:16 PM »

I sometime wonder why the need for government to inject another cog in the wheel between the front line and the rear. Why would we ARES/Races and the like need MARS in the middle..I think we have proven more than occasionally we can speak the kings English enough to suffice the delivery of Support.

Dear OM,

With all due respect, please note that your premise is incorrect. MARS is not there to facilitate civilian communication. If it were, then indeed it would seem like another layer... MARS is a Department of Defence sponsored program to support the mission of the Departments of the Army and Air Force. The MARS mission is thus to provide Auxilliary Communications to the DoD, not civilians.

Regarding capabilities: if ARES/ RACES were able and allowed to transmit encrypted messages, then yes they might be of some higher value to the DoD; so much for the capabilities of ARES/ RACES.

73
Logged

AFA6MD

  • Member
  • Posts: 31
RE: MARS Exercise the Week of 8 November 2015
« Reply #19 on: November 28, 2015, 11:04:45 PM »

I do not believe you can point to a single real emergency where the armature had to wait on an intermediate communication group to get on station to send traffic to any agency.
That may happen when the State or Federal Agency's get in place and start to establish communication back to a normal flow which often turns in to a total mess and disruption.
The amateurs proved in 9/11 and Katrina they were very able to send messages to and from with common readable formats effectively without all the pass through agency's and there must use formats and systems in place.
The simple fact is when the what for hits the fan they will gladly use what ever is at hand and prefer it directly from the horses mouth and not wait for filtering or delays. They certainly will not tell the functioning operator, Oh but we can't take your message or have you relay one because our SOP says we must use MARS, ARES or Races.
It sounds good to the agency who spouts it is so, but in application it will not happen.
Just my thoughts yours may differ...73's

Same here Sir,
MARS is not there to help you interact with local authorities, FEMA, etc., that is the task of ARES/RACES. MARS operators are there to assist as Auxiliary communicators in the defence of this Republic, which in turn directly or indirectly serves for your protection.
73
Logged

AFA6MD

  • Member
  • Posts: 31
RE: MARS Exercise the Week of 8 November 2015
« Reply #20 on: November 28, 2015, 11:33:37 PM »

I guess I'm a little confused by what the exercise is supposed to prove.  Depending on the propagation affect by the CME and its severity level, how can you judge the efficiency of your operational status and station links.  There's no true way to project who can communicate to whom.  Seems it should just be called an exercise to evaluate how many of your MARS affiliates can get on the air if called upon. How can you evaluate how effective your communications will be if a CME event really occurs.  This seems sort of silly to me or perhaps you're just trying to prove to your masters that MARS is still relevant with this unscientific activity.

Dear OM,

Do you have your Comms gear stored in a CME/ EMP proof metal container (with all metal seams sealed by aluminum tape), or do you at a bare minimum have one available for when the next CME comes our way and is announced? When it does head our way, don't expect your local home improvement shop to still have some available, they'll all be sold out. If you don't have one, all your electronics will likely be toast. THAT was the first objective of this exercise. I'll assume at this point that you have not taken any steps to mitigate the effects on your gear as you inquired what point this exercise was to prove. If you don't have a Faraday cage yet, there is still time. How much? No one knows, but it is a certainty that there will be the next Carrington Event as there are between 1 CME per week and 2 CME per day (depending on solar cycle), just that most don't head towards earth. Oh, did you know that Sweden's Air Traffic Control was knocked out by a mini CME? http://www.emergencymgmt.com/emergency-blogs/disaster-zone/correctiononempthatwasacme.html ...and this was just this month.

Point #2: how many Amateurs are willing and are capable to step up to serve their fellow citizens, not letting their egos get in the way? I can say for my State that the ARRL SM is unwilling to serve most anyone and same goes for my County's ARES EC, he doesn't even care to interact with any Amateurs to get our hospitals connected to the OEM. On the contrary, he does everything to obstruct it. Shameful.

Point #3: the one which you addressed, what will propagation be like after a CME/EMP? Well, we shall see. But only those whose gear has not been transformed to toast, will actually experience the propagation.

Sir, if you are willing to step up to learn highly efficient communication techniques and serve this Republic and fellow citizens by supporting the DoD through service in MARS, then we would be honored to work with you.

73
Logged

KC2QYM

  • Member
  • Posts: 958
RE: MARS Exercise the Week of 8 November 2015
« Reply #21 on: November 29, 2015, 03:50:10 AM »

As long as my canned food, water, and ammo are not affected then I'm fine. I could care less to communicate with others yelling for help when everyone is in the same pickle. By the way, I don't have any tuna fish to share with anyone.
Logged

W6EM

  • Member
  • Posts: 1944
RE: MARS Exercise the Week of 8 November 2015
« Reply #22 on: December 02, 2015, 05:56:30 PM »

I guess I'm a little confused by what the exercise is supposed to prove.  Depending on the propagation affect by the CME and its severity level, how can you judge the efficiency of your operational status and station links.  There's no true way to project who can communicate to whom.  Seems it should just be called an exercise to evaluate how many of your MARS affiliates can get on the air if called upon. How can you evaluate how effective your communications will be if a CME event really occurs.  This seems sort of silly to me or perhaps you're just trying to prove to your masters that MARS is still relevant with this unscientific activity.

Dear OM,

Do you have your Comms gear stored in a CME/ EMP proof metal container (with all metal seams sealed by aluminum tape), or do you at a bare minimum have one available for when the next CME comes our way and is announced?

Mr. MD:
Let’s take a look at your “model” EMP-proof container.  Chances are, it’s painted metal.  And, that aluminum duct tape has a thick layer of adhesive that’s a good insulator.  According to Sir Michael Faraday, one of his equations says that the electric field inside of a conductive enclosure is zero. If you managed to bridge all of the gaps.  However, another of his equations says that a time-varying magnetic field will induce a current in a conductor.  Your Faraday cage-sort-of will not stop a transient magnetic field pulse.  Small wires and components inside that metal ammo-can will have voltages induced in them.



Quote
When it does head our way, don't expect your local home improvement shop to still have some available, they'll all be sold out. If you don't have one, all your electronics will likely be toast. THAT was the first objective of this exercise.

Home Depot or Lowes doesn’t sell electronic surge protection, the last time I checked.  I don’t think they even sell small gauge electronic solder to attach them with.


Quote
I'll assume at this point that you have not taken any steps to mitigate the effects on your gear as you inquired what point this exercise was to prove. If you don't have a Faraday cage yet, there is still time.
Perhaps you should (or whoever came up with your prescription) retire to a study of Maxwell's equations to better address the effects such phenomena while you still have time.....


 

Quote
But only those whose gear has not been transformed to toast, will actually experience the propagation.

Accurate, but not from a taped-up metal can and nothing more....

Logged

AFA6MD

  • Member
  • Posts: 31
RE: MARS Exercise the Week of 8 November 2015
« Reply #23 on: December 02, 2015, 11:40:06 PM »

As long as my canned food, water, and ammo are not affected then I'm fine. I could care less to communicate with others yelling for help when everyone is in the same pickle. By the way, I don't have any tuna fish to share with anyone.

OM, you may not want to communicate with anyone but if you ain't got Commo, you don't know what coming your way, good or bad. 73
Logged

AFA6MD

  • Member
  • Posts: 31
RE: MARS Exercise the Week of 8 November 2015
« Reply #24 on: December 02, 2015, 11:46:57 PM »

W6EM,
Always bad to make assumptions, especially when they are erroneous. You may choose to harden your gear from CME/EMP, or you can choose not to. Respectfully suggest you read up how to since you did not understand my description of how hardening could be performed. If you decide not to, certainly Sir, it is your prerogative.
73
Logged

W3JKS

  • Member
  • Posts: 223
    • homeURL
RE: MARS Exercise the Week of 8 November 2015
« Reply #25 on: December 03, 2015, 09:34:41 AM »

W6EM,
Always bad to make assumptions, especially when they are erroneous. You may choose to harden your gear from CME/EMP, or you can choose not to. Respectfully suggest you read up how to since you did not understand my description of how hardening could be performed. If you decide not to, certainly Sir, it is your prerogative.
73

Or he could make a copper trash can, climb inside with his radios, then solder the lid shut.  :-) 
Logged

KA0P

  • Member
  • Posts: 27
RE: MARS Exercise the Week of 8 November 2015
« Reply #26 on: December 03, 2015, 04:44:27 PM »

SOP from the early 80s was to keep our old tube type equip ready to go. No sensitive solid state junctions to burn up. I still have all mine
Logged

W6EM

  • Member
  • Posts: 1944
RE: MARS Exercise the Week of 8 November 2015
« Reply #27 on: December 03, 2015, 04:45:31 PM »

W6EM,
Always bad to make assumptions, especially when they are erroneous. You may choose to harden your gear from CME/EMP, or you can choose not to. Respectfully suggest you read up how to since you did not understand my description of how hardening could be performed. If you decide not to, certainly Sir, it is your prerogative.
73
You clearly don't understand electromagnetics.  Your description of "hardening," even if done properly, would only protect what you have enclosed from the electric field, not the magnetic field.  It is the magnetic field which cannot be easily defeated.  Protection from induced voltages must be built into the gear itself.  Faraday cages are ineffective to the most damaging part of EMP, the magnetic pulse.
Logged

W6EM

  • Member
  • Posts: 1944
RE: MARS Exercise the Week of 8 November 2015
« Reply #28 on: December 03, 2015, 04:48:27 PM »

W6EM,
Always bad to make assumptions, especially when they are erroneous. You may choose to harden your gear from CME/EMP, or you can choose not to. Respectfully suggest you read up how to since you did not understand my description of how hardening could be performed. If you decide not to, certainly Sir, it is your prerogative.
73

Or he could make a copper trash can, climb inside with his radios, then solder the lid shut.  :-)  
Yes, I guess I could if I were experiencing the annoying effects of an intense time varying electric field such as an EHV transmission line.

If you don't understand electromagnetics, your gear will be compromised.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2015, 05:05:14 PM by W6EM »
Logged

AFA6MD

  • Member
  • Posts: 31
RE: MARS Exercise the Week of 8 November 2015
« Reply #29 on: December 12, 2015, 09:11:21 PM »

Electromagnetic shielding derives from Maxwell's equations which proves that the electrical field over a closed surface is a function of the charge and that the magnetic field over a closed surface sums to zero.

Here a sample manual for all those who want to know details.
http://www.wbdg.org/ccb/FEDMIL/std188_125_1.pdf

Especially see 4.3.1 following.

73
Logged
Pages: 1 [2] 3   Go Up