Cross Border Communications Group

CrossBorder 2014 -- update #3 (December 18, 2013)

In 24 days we go live with the CrossBorder 2014 amateur radio communications exercise. While we still have a few operational plans to finalize, the VA7ARE Net Control team is ready to go. As of today, the participant list has been closed and no additional locations will we added to the exercise. With upwards of 65 stations confirmed, the sheer size of event will quite likely rival any previous amateur radio emergency preparedness event in the Pacific Northwest. Here are a few final comments for the exercise which begins at 0930 PST or 1730 UTC on January 11, 2014: CrossBorder 2014 will establish communication with (and between) a large number of medical service facilities, and EOCs in southwestern British Columbia as well as with stations located the Yukon, Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and western Washington State. The attached spreadsheet is the final listing of participants. Please review your data to ensure accuracy. If there are errors in your data, please update the listing, save the file with your call sign as the last item in the file name and return the file to: radio@cvrd.bc.ca. Stations in both OR and ID have been expressed in the exercise, but to date there is no confirmation of participation. Are you out there? Net control will be handled by three simultaneous net controls stations that will operate by region on different frequencies. Each Net Control station will run a directed net working from list of tactical call signs. Primary net control for CrossBorder 2014 will be VA7ARE and supporting them will be NC7Q at the Ferndale EOC and AA7SB at the VA Hospital in Seattle. VA7ARE will coordinate all HF voice and data traffic as well as local check-ins for Vancouver Island and Metro Vancouver. NC7Q will handle all Region #1 traffic while AA7SB will look after all Region #6 traffic. Both NC7Q and AA7SB should be prepared to pass summary traffic counts / sitreps to VA7ARE via whatever digital mode they have in place. RMS Express is used at VA7ARE and their Winlink address is: va7are@winlink.org. Scenario traffic and inject messages will be passed from VA7ARE to either NC7Q or AA7SB on their working frequencies. A mission number is still required for all USA stations and a PEP task number has been requested for all BC stations. Yukon stations please check with your local EMO for a task number to ensure coverage for all participants. Stations in the Yukon, Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and the PREOC stations throughout BC will all be contacted on HF voice (by VA7ARE) and for those that have HF Pactor; data traffic will also be exchanged with net control. Please consider advance testing of your HF Pactor facility with VA7ARE (contact them: va7are@gmail.com ). Stations in these locations will receive scenario and inject traffic via either HF voice or data. The ICS-205 has been finalized and is attached for your review. VA7ARE have a rotary tri-band beam at 50 so all HF activity should be easily handled on 20m. VA7ARE also have NVIS antennas for both 40m and 80m should HF band alternatives be required. In addition to voice communications, net control encourages all stations to utilize RMS Express for the exchange of digital message traffic using either P2P (Peer-to-Peer) or WL2K. The Winlink address for VA7ARE is: va7are@winlink.org For those stations that can utilize the facility, the digital repeater (aka the BrPrr / bit regenerative repeater) located on Lyman Hill (northeast of Sedro Woolley, WA) can provide a path for sending digital messages. BrPrr details are: TX is 146.4375 MHz with a tone of 192.8 and the RX is 147.4375 MHz with no PL tone. When using this machine, you can route via either P2P or WL2K. Please test in advance if you have digital capability. CrossBorder 2014 will test the overall level of (voice and data) communications connectivity between all participating locations to develop a post-exercise communications matrix that will be shared with all participants. This matrix will provide participants with an invaluable resource to augment their local communications plan. In addition a full set of Depiction mapping is also being developed to share with you. Twitter will be used during CrossBorder 2014 -- so please follow @Paul_B_Peters

Background on CBCG The Cross Border Communications Group (CBCG), is a well-organized group of high profile community based amateur radio operators from Southwest BC and the multi-county area surrounding Bellingham, WA to the Canada / USA border. Formed in 2008, this group meets quarterly to discuss ways amateur radio resources can be coordinated cross-border during an emergency or disaster in our respective areas. The development and maintenance of our cross border working relationships are critical to the ongoing success of the group and its objectives. The mission statement of the group i s that: We stand ready to provide interoperable backup communications services to our stakeholders when normal systems are overloaded or have become inoperative. Direct participation in the group is by invitation only.