April Fool’s Communication Exercise
Anchorage ARES participated in the statewide April Fool’s ARES communications exercise on 4/1/2017 from approximately 1000L to 1300L. While HF conditions proved challenging at best, we successfully moved locally originated digital traffic between 5 stations in the Anchorage area and to one station in MatSu. We monitored the Grubstake 2m/440 repeater for wide are coverage and maintained simplex voice comms on a 2 meter frequency for Anchorage operations. Of special note was our success in moving traffic from the AARC Club Station in south Anchorage to KL7JFU on 220 MHz 9600 baud packet through the EARS digipeater. We also checked in with Kenai over our 220 repeater. No HF digital or voice comms were established; however, we did successfully make contact with AL7N in Fairbanks on 80 meters CW; unfortunately, no traffic was moved over CW due to poor conditions.
Anchorage ARES relies on key individuals assigned to critical communications resources and customer locations. Please consider getting involved and becoming part of the ARES team. We hope to perform our own Anchorage area communications exercises in the near future and we’d love your help!
Kent Petty, KL5T
Anchorage District Emergency Coordinator
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