ARES
| ARES | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Amateur Radio Emergency Service |
| Sponsor | ARRL |
| Founded | 1935, as the Amateur Radio Emergency Corps |
| Who can join | Any licensed amateur; ARRL membership and equipment not required |
| Organization | |
| Structure | By ARRL section, district, and county or city |
| Leaders | Section Emergency Coordinator, District Emergency Coordinators, Emergency Coordinators |
| Served agencies | Emergency management, hospitals, the Red Cross and others |
| Annual exercise | Simulated Emergency Test |
| Training | |
| Common courses | FEMA ICS-100, ICS-200 and IS-700; ARRL EC-001 |
| Progress record | ARES Task Book |
The Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) is the ARRL's program for organizing volunteer amateur radio operators to provide communications in emergencies and at public-service events. Members register with a local leader, train, and practice on regular nets and drills, so that when a hospital, shelter or county emergency operations center loses its normal communications, a trained ham with a working station can be there quickly. ARES is the best-known amateur emergency communications organization in the United States. Any licensed amateur may join; neither ARRL membership nor any particular equipment is required.
History
The ARRL formed the Amateur Radio Emergency Corps in 1935, after amateurs had repeatedly relayed messages out of areas cut off by floods and storms when telephone and telegraph lines were down. The corps later became ARES. The basic idea has not changed: hams register in advance, train together, and offer their skills to the agencies that run disaster response, rather than showing up unannounced after something goes wrong.
Organization
ARES follows the ARRL's field organization. Each ARRL section, usually a state or part of a large state, is led by an elected section manager, who appoints a Section Emergency Coordinator (SEC) to run ARES across the section. Larger sections are divided into districts, each led by a District Emergency Coordinator (DEC). At the local level, usually a county or city, an Emergency Coordinator (EC) leads the ARES group: recruiting members, keeping in touch with local agencies and organizing training. Assistant Emergency Coordinators take on specific jobs, such as managing the net or acting as liaison to a particular hospital. Experienced members may also hold the ARRL appointment of Official Emergency Station.
To join, a ham contacts the local EC, who is usually listed on the section's website.
Served agencies
ARES groups don't respond on their own. They work for served agencies, the organizations whose communications they support. Typical served agencies are county and city emergency management offices, hospitals and public health departments, the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army and the National Weather Service. The ARRL holds national agreements with several such organizations, and local groups often work out their own written agreements that spell out what ARES will provide and how a call-out works. Many ARES members also belong to RACES, the government-sponsored emergency service, and some counties run a combined ARES/RACES group.
When activated, members work under the served agency's direction and its Incident Command System, the standard structure US agencies use to manage an emergency. Hams provide communications; they don't direct the response or act as first responders. The work might mean staffing a radio at a shelter, linking hospitals when their phones are down, or sending forms and supply lists by Winlink to a state emergency operations center.
Training
The usual starting point is a set of free online courses from FEMA's Emergency Management Institute: ICS-100 and ICS-200, which cover the Incident Command System, and IS-700, which introduces the National Incident Management System. Many groups also ask for IS-800, on the National Response Framework. The ARRL offers its own courses, beginning with EC-001, Introduction to Emergency Communication, and continuing with a management course for ECs and other leaders.
The ARRL's ARES plan arranges training into levels, and the ARES Task Book is the workbook members use to record their progress. It lists practical tasks, such as checking into nets, handling formal messages, setting up a station on emergency power and taking part in exercises, and each one is signed off by an EC or another qualified leader once it has been demonstrated. Individual groups and agencies may add requirements of their own, such as identification badges or background checks.
Nets and drills
Most ARES groups hold a weekly net, usually on a local repeater with a simplex frequency as backup, and many sections also run an HF net to link their counties. Nets keep members practiced at check-ins and message handling, and they double as a regular test of stations and antennas. Formal messages in the radiogram format of the National Traffic System are a common part of drills.
Larger exercises test the whole system. The best-known is the ARRL's annual Simulated Emergency Test (SET), usually held in the fall, in which groups across the country respond to a made-up disaster scenario, often alongside their served agencies. Public-service events such as marathons, bike rides and parades are some of the most realistic training of all, with real traffic and real logistics but none of the danger of an actual disaster.