I would like to thank all of the Delaware County ARES members for participating in the EPA SET on Saturday.  We had a good number of members checking in and sending messages over Winlink, which was one of the goals of the exercise.  We also had Tom deployed at the DES Training Center in Sharon Hill near the Philadelphia Airport, and learned more about using that location.  I know Simplex communications were a bit challenging at times, but that was also a purpose of the exercise to see who/where we could communicate with not using repeaters, and who/where we couldn't.

Thanks again for all of those that participated.

Here is a message from Bob Wilson, our Section Emergency Coordinator.

The SET is now history and the initial report is very encouraging. We don’t have the final numbers yet, but despite some nasty weather, our teams did very well.

As you know, our focus was on digital messaging and that aspect went extremely well. We received Winlink status and shelter messages from 13 counties including:

  1. Delaware
  2. Lehigh
  3. Bucks
  4. Bradford
  5. Luzerne
  6. Lackawanna
  7. Montgomery
  8. Berks
  9. Lycoming
  10. Wayne
  11. Cumberland
  12. Schuylkill
  13. Dauphin

We also received a terrific acknowledgement from the Southeastern PA Red Cross reporting the receipt of numerous simulated shelter messages from deployed units. Including the Red Cross in our exercise was a major focus and we did a great job checking that box.

We also received reports from several counties that were successful in passing inter-county messages, which was also a focus of our drill.

The HF phone net, which has been challenging due to band conditions, was also decent with 7 counties checking in including:

  1. Montgomery
  2. Luzerne
  3. Berks
  4. Bucks
  5. Lehigh
  6. Schuylkill
  7. Philadelphia

We will analyze reports and identify areas that need improvement or tweaking. Any suggestions for future exercises will be greatly appreciated.

Again, the initial appraisal of our SET is very positive and we want to thank everyone who participated and made this exercise a success. There was a lot of planning, preparation and effort that went into this drill and our teams performed extremely well.

Thanks again for proving your value in making our communities much safer.

Sincerely,

Bob Wilson, W3BIG