A two-day emergency exercise including both the
Military Auxiliary Radio System (MARS) and the ARRL's Amateur Radio Emergency
Service (ARES) is being termed a success, the ARRL Letter reports, especially with
regard to cooperation between the two groups.
The exercise in early November
was built around a scenario of a massive solar flare disrupting communication
systems across the United
States. MARS stations were asked to make
contact with amateur stations in as many US counties as possible. In all,
according to Army MARS Program Manager Paul English, WD8DBY, contact was made
with 26% of all counties by MARS members using primarily NVIS (near-vertical
incidence skywave) on HF as well as VHF and UHF repeaters.
The purpose of the
exercise, English said, was to exchange usable information from the local level
to the national level in a crisis, adding that success is possible "only
through … cooperation among MARS and the larger amateur radio community."
