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The ARES Letter

Published by the American Radio Relay League
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December 20, 2023

Editor: Rick Palm, K1CE <k1ce@arrl.net>

IN THIS ISSUE

- ARES® Briefs, Links
- Successful ShakeOut 2023 Exercise and Winlink DYFI Reports
- SCARES Members Receive Awards for Tunnel 5 Fire Response
- Letters: Wilderness Heart Attack Emergency Handled by Winlink
- Neighborhood Radio Watch: Ideas
- Radio Room Dedicated to Veteran Emergency Coordinator
- K1CE for a Final: "ASAP" - Short Feed Lines Feedback
- ARES® Resources

==> ARES® BRIEFS, LINKS

In The ARES Letter for November 15, 2023, the Winter Field Day dates
are incorrectly listed as January 23-24, 2024. They are actually
January 27-28, 2024. - Thanks, Jesse Brumm, AJ7F

FEMA released its 2023 National Preparedness Report
<https://lnks.gd/l/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJidWxsZXRpbl9saW5rX2lkIjoxMDIsInVyaSI6ImJwMjpjbGljayIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmZlbWEuZ292L2VtZXJnZW5jeS1tYW5hZ2Vycy9uYXRpb25hbC1wcmVwYXJlZG5lc3MjcmVwb3J0cyIsImJ1bGxldGluX2lkIjoiMjAyMzEyMDYuODY2ODU5MzEifQ.IKzYSyWezElroj1UPXTyyMdepAuostysJPtAs2SWDFs/s/131030018/br/232335395041-l>,
highlighting the state of the nation's preparedness at all levels of
government while examining the risks the nation faces and the
capabilities available to address them. With the cost and frequency of
disasters increasing markedly over previous decades, emergency managers
must continue to adapt, forge new partnerships, and anticipate
challenges to help individuals and communities.

Climate change continues to increase the frequency and severity of
weather, which compounds the challenges that emergency managers face in
addressing an increasingly complex risk environment. The report
highlights how to adapt and forge new partnerships to face those
challenges and achieve a more prepared nation.

This year's report provides a data-driven picture of national
preparedness and emergency management trends with focused discussions
on four core capabilities:

- Fire Management and Suppression.
- Logistics and Supply Chain Management.
- Public Health, Healthcare, and Emergency Medical Services.
- Long-Term Vulnerability Reduction.

This year's report provides concrete recommendations that partners and
stakeholders across the whole community can take to increase the
nation's resilience.

==> SUCCESSFUL SHAKEOUT 2023 EXERCISE AND WINLINK DYFI REPORTS

The ShakeOut 2023 exercise was an extremely successful demonstration of
worldwide amateur radio, CISA SHARES, and Air Force MARS operators
providing "ground truth" reports to USGS during a simulated earthquake.
Over 1,500 reports were submitted through the Winlink system using the
"Did You Feel It" (DYFI) form developed by the Winlink team in
cooperation with the United States Geological Survey (USGS.) Reports
were received from the US, several European countries, Philippines,
Australia, and New Zealand. The reports were sent directly to USGS and
distributed to several other agencies including South Carolina
Emergency Management Agency, which generated maps and reports for FEMA.

The DYFI reports were processed by the Winlink Express program, which
has built-in capabilities for analyzing and mapping many types of
reports. The reports were displayed on a map generated by Winlink
Express with markers indicating the severity of the earthquake.

Winlink Express also wrote real-time updates to a comma separated value
(CSV) file which was used by ArcGIS® and other third-party GIS programs
to generate additional maps, charts, and reports.

The locations of reports shown on Winlink Express maps and passed to
third-party GIS programs were very accurate. To achieve maximum
accuracy, Winlink Express uses a hierarchy of methods for determining
the position:

- The user explicitly specified latitude and longitude (not a default
value)
- GPS position from form or message header (inserted automatically by
Winlink Express)
- Google street address lookup to determine latitude and longitude
- If no user-specified or GPS location, and the street address is not
valid (for example, street address but no city or state), then user's
grid square.
Using the grid square is less accurate than GPS or address lookup, but
it shows the neighborhood where the report was submitted, rather than
discarding the report due to lack of location.

Some additional checks were applied to reported positions. If a
user-specified location was provided by someone with a North American
call sign (US, Canada, Mexico), and the longitude was positive
indicating Eastern Hemisphere, an address lookup was used in preference
to the submitted position, because there was a high likelihood that the
user got the sign of the longitude wrong. This procedure corrected the
location of approximately a dozen reports.

An analysis was done of the positions determined by the hierarchical
processing to see how closely they compared to the street address
location. This is a summary of the distance between positions derived
by Winlink Express and the reported street address:

Distance ≤ 33 feet: 93.70%

Distance ≤ 50 feet: 95.19%

Distance ≤ 100 feet: 96.32%

Distance ≤ 200 feet: 97.95%

Distance ≤ 500 feet: 98.66%

In 93.7% of the cases, the position was within 33 feet (10 meters) of
the street address, and 98% of the time the difference was within 200
feet.

The location difference does not imply an error: The GPS position may
be 50 feet from the street address location, but the GPS position may
give a more precise location of the sender. A difference of 50 feet
could be due to which room in a house the report was submitted from.

Some participants may have experienced the earthquake while away from
home, but specified their home address on the report.

In conclusion, the ShakeOut 2023 exercise was a huge success. Several
goals were accomplished:

- Many ham operators were motivated to submit DYFI reports, and there
was exceptional cooperation between amateur radio organizations
worldwide, CISA SHARES, Air Force MARS, state agencies, and FEMA.
- Hams learned about the DYFI form and practiced using it.
- The procedure for submitting reports via Winlink was successful using
both Winlink Express and third-party Winlink client programs such as
RadioMail and PAT.
- The processing and mapping of reports by Winlink Express and 3rd
party GIS programs worked well as it has for previous FEMA and
state-driven exercises.
- The hierarchical processing done by Winlink Express to derive the
most precise location was successful. GPS positions gave greater
accuracy than street address lookup, and several user entry errors were
corrected automatically.
- The ability of hams to submit timely ground truth information was
demonstrated and noted by FEMA and state agencies.
- During an actual earthquake where the infrastructure is damaged, the
ability to submit DYFI reports via Winlink using HF radio will be
essential.

The Winlink Development Team is grateful for the cooperative effort of
USGS, CISA SHARES, Air Force MARS, FEMA, their stakeholders, ARRL and
the many other amateur radio organizations for the roles they played to
make this exercise successful. An AAR will be forthcoming. -- Winlink
Development Team (WDT)

==> SCARES MEMBERS RECEIVE AWARDS FOR TUNNEL 5 FIRE RESPONSE

As previously reported in the July edition of the ARES Letter
<http://www.arrl.org/ares-el?issue=2023-07-19#toc01>, Skamania County
Amateur Radio Emergency Service (SCARES) was activated for 4 intense
days in July 2023 during the Tunnel 5 Fire along the Columbia River in
Washington. Members augmented the EOC staff and also provided lifeline
communications to a small isolated community west of Underwood,
Washington, when landline phone lines were not operational. Eight
SCARES members donated their knowledge, skills, and abilities for a
total of 189.2 hours.

On December 5, 2023, SCARES and those eight participants were honored
with awards from ARRL Western Washington (WWA) Section Manager Monte
Simpson, W7FF. These were presented by WWAAS EC Mike Montfort, KB0SVF,
with the assistance of the DEC for Washington District 4, Michael
Barnhart, AE7GQ. Both Skamania County Sheriff Summer Scheyer and
Undersheriff Tracy Wyckoff attended the presentations to honor the
recipients.

Sheriff Scheyer said "The incredible, selfless efforts made by our ARES
members provides a valued service to our community and to our Sheriff's
Office. As both a community member and Sheriff of Skamania County, I am
forever grateful for those who have donated their time to provide such
an integral service."

The inscription on the plaque to the group reads "The Western
Washington Section commends the exemplary performance of Skamania
County Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) for providing emergency
communications to the Skamania County Sheriff's Office and the people
of Skamania County during the Tunnel 5 fire July 2023. The actions of
this team reflect highly upon the Amateur Radio Service, the Western
Washington Section and ARES." In addition, each participating member
received a mounted Emergency Communications Commendation certificate
from the ARRL.