RCARES GMR 2006 Afteraction Report
From Megawiki
Description: GMR DRILL & COMMUNICATIONS EXERCISE-RACINE COUNTY.
Event Date: June 9-10, 2006
Report Date: SEPT 25, 2006
RACES Event: N/A
Control: Lake COUNTY, IL ARES
Report Revision: 1.0
Submitted By: Jim Markstrom KB9MMA
Requirements for Reporting
Completing an After Action Report is part of the required reporting process. The
Emergency Services Act, Section 8607 (f) mandates that the Office of Emergency Services (OES) in
cooperation with involved state and local agencies complete an After Action Report within 120 days after each declared disaster.
Additionally, this After Action Report format is used to document the training exercise
described here.
Introduction and Background
The purpose of this event was to facilitate the safe and enjoyable operation of the 2nd annual Great Midwest Relay. .
June 9-10, 2006 runners, their families and friends, spectators and many others will gathered again in Madison, WI for the 2nd annual running of the Great Midwest Relay (GMR). The GMR is one of the longest distance races of its kind in the Midwest. The race will include about 1,000 runners, eight counties and two states. Amateur radio operators are needed in Racine county to assist with this event. There were 4 (four) Transfer Areas (TA) to cover. Each station should be assigned at least three operators to work out well. The more operators assigned at each station allows us to shorten the assignment durations. This is an ARES activity. assisting in these service activities helps train operators. The Emergency operations center in Lake County, Illinois will also be activated for this event.
Location of Event
Event Type: GMR TRAINING EXERCISE
Event Identifier: 2006 GMR
Event Name: GREAT MIDWEST RELAY COMMUNICATIONS EXERCISE-RACINE COUNTY
Location: RACINE, WI
Description of Event
The GMR is a two-day, 190 Mile relay race, beginning in Madison, WI and finishing at Chicago's downtown lakefront. Portions of the proceeds from this event will be donated to the Special Olympics to support their efforts. The GMR is one of the longest distance races of its kind in the Midwest. The race course is comprised of segments or "legs" created from the scenic streets, trails and bike paths of Wisconsin and Illinois. Relay teams of 6-12 people each will come from around the country to participate in the GMR. The relay allows for a diversity of participants and teams, from serious runners to casual participants and teams simply enjoying the experience of such an exciting event.
Event Features:
190 Miles.
Course is 70% Bike Trails and Paths.
36 Legs.
250 Team Maximum.
2-6 Person Ultra Teams and 8-12 Person Teams.
19 Award Categories.
{Excerpt from http://www.greatmidwestrelay.com}
Chronological Summary of Event
Assignments for event are located at
http://www.w9udu.org/wiki/index.php/RCARES_2006_Great_Midwest_Relay_Race_Assignments
I am not going to state details on everything because all information is not available to me at this time. I can provide time windows of stations reporting and securing.
TA 18
KA9KJE - Winlink operator KA9KJE - Tom Burger - June 9 -19:00 PM -1:00AM VTA #18 Greendale - Root River Parkway past W Grange.
Reported 17:00 hours per direction of KB9MMA stayed till 11:30 PM that day when secured.
Racine County Digital group provided resources at this location, to mutual assurance with other ARES organizations, coordinated by Jim KB9MMC & Jim KB9MMA.
KA9KJE Tom burger was volunteered for this position.
The digital station operator sent out a messages when the first three and last runner leaves their area. There will be a spreadsheet providedevery hour with the times that runners leave the area. The spreadsheet is about 100 entries long. The digital operators filled in a time for each team and send the document to the NCS stations and the digital coordinator.
TA 23
June 9-10 (11:00 PM - 06:00 AM) Repeaters 145.39/147.27
These operators were veterans from the first GMR, I assigned them to this location at their request. They operated VTA 24 last year.
I have nothing but thanks for their continued help here, I have no comments other than They reported on time showed up, and did their necessary functions for the event.
TA 24
JUNE 9-10 (12:01AM-07:00 AM) Repeater 147.27/146.820 Winlink VTA. (Van Transfer Area)
KC9HMM AND KB9MMA were deployed at 9 PM till 8 am at VTA 24 There both operators ran at TA 24 ran voice and digital communications deployed to help out, were planned, one operator had to bow out due to last minute personal commitment.
KB9MMA AND KC9HMM alternated Digital and voice communications. Both had Digital stations on hand, with self contained emergency power.
Both had developed unique jump kits in the RCARES digital group as part of the counties digital plan Voice and Digital Go-Boxes are essential for rapid deployment of communications resources and Winlink 2000.
 KB9MMA digital 1 |
 KC9HMM digital 1 |
 KC9HMM digital station |
 digital jump kit KB9MMA |
 KB9MMA mobile setup 2 |
While proven Winlink 2000 messaging is nice function is the easy, simple proven way to attach
Standard Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets, and even pictures of runners to NCS and EOC.
Look Ma No wires!!!
 team 33 outbound runner |
 team 9 inbound TA 24 |
TA 25
JUNE 10 (2:00 AM-08:00 AM)
Repeater 147.27/145.39
KC9EOW showed up early about 10PM, just in time to see first teams pass. She was deployed with voice and digital, Again back-up for the backup. in case I had to relieve someone. WB9USI and N9RGX showed up at 2 am to relieve her.
TA25 Pictures
 KC9EOW digital station 1 |
 Cathy KC9EOW GMR Mobile heading out | |
 Rainbow rejuvenates Cathy KC9EOW |
 What a lift! sunrise to the East and Rainbow to the West. Do I have to leave TA 25? |
TA 26
JUNE 10 (3:00 AM-09:00 AM)
Repeater 147.27/146.82
KC9IEO, and eventually KB9MMA helped at the end
We left 10 AM, very tired, KC9IEO did excellent job.
Things that went well
Things that need improvement
Response
Include a summary, conclusions, the field response, and other local, operational area, regional, state or federal response.
VTA 18
Things went well with Winlink, messages and spreadsheets were delivered. Station to Station and Station to NCS were delivered. KA9KJE enjoyed his first real actual digital and GMR experience.
Some technical challenges were reviewed One main one is that the audio at w9wk-10 dropped out, This was troubleshot real time by KB9MMA, KA9KJE, N9PMO, AND KB9MMC via Winlink. Low audio issue at w9wk-10 needs to be investigated, and corrected. I review this as a good thing, because it proved additional TELPAC gateways in single county. It is purely a numbers game. People would say just have one Well that is fine and good, until issues like this happen and you don't have time to fix them. Co-ordinated locations of TELPAC gateways, and other digital resources is absolutely essential to provide adequate coverage design is essential to a county EC or Digital AEC. A digital plan, setup guidelines is also essential. This equates to hardware requirements, setup of equipment and even SID and beacon recommendations.
Also to note in relation to TELPAC coverage, KB9MMC-10 while on-line due to terrain, was nearly unreachable. S1-3 with high gain omni. Action plan recommend direction relatively high gain antennas to be utilized in digital and Voice communications at client end.
Also message acknowledgment needs to happen acknowledge message delivery, after a while messages were going to black hole, especially at EOC probably due to fatigue, or not enough staffing.
Usually the Digital station, had to pulse NCS to see if they were received. Recommend implementing digital net control training and requirements, guidelines is important! Digital practice nets are also recommended.
Also recommend alternate band setup for certain Telpacs, I did note that the TELPAC node co-located with NCS location, were running 3 repeaters at this time about 20:00-21:00 June 9 continually de-sensed the TELPAC node on Two meters. Recommend investigate multi-point, multi-band application for any county and state that has the need. Alternative are to better diversify digital nodes from concentrated locations where voice communications cannot desense each other.
Example:
A station could be on Two meter Voice and also be operating digital.
TA 23
AA9XD stated Diagram of the TA site was inaccurate (apparently from last year). Suggestion: Add bathrooms to TA diagrams.
Almost all of the runners thanked us.
No thunderstorms!
Easy for runners to see our TA with all the lights, etc.
Traffic did not seem to get too congested.
And you can't beat the sunrise with a double rainbow opposite it!
VTA 24
While Jim KB9MMA was a vet this second time around, Lynn KC9HMM, a fairly new ham. Had a blast while we operated. He recently moved to Iowa, and drove back to Racine to support the race! That is dedication!
What went well:
- Utilization of the WIKI tool to co-orinate and rethink the way ham radio does things!
- Both emergency powered, including computers, had adequate voice and data communications.
- Training program put together by WB9USI and KB9MMA prepared well for events in the county.
- Multi frequency, plan was utilized, while KB9MMA was troubleshooting with KA9KJE, KC9HMM was moved to alternate local RF LAN frequency. with no interruption in Service. This allowed Jim to troubleshoot and also operate without hurting Lynn's operation. This is good to know in large scale events and exercises. It is also a good backup, for the backup.
- Weather for the area, maps, forecasts were pulled hourly by the team, this is a simple thing to do on Winlink.
- ARRL courses helped Jim KB9MMA, compared to last year EC001,2,3 prepare a lot of this program.
What can be improved:
- While yahoo groups, are good it can have several drawbacks, again use right tool for right JOB.
It is difficult to link information to a yahoo group.
- Additional Telpacs,already in pipeline, to be deployed for numerous reasons.
- Addition or alternate band 70cm perhaps for Data or voice needs to be explored.
- Have additional batteries for emergency power, or a quick charger.
- More portable teams throughout the state
- Look at integrating HSMM into digital plan, develop tools and techniques to deploy.
- Recruit & train more people, and also develop a more robust statewide digital plan
- TA Managers- None past Madison? This problem still has to be remedied, Personally I think a Detailed SCOPE / Memorandum should be developed. While it is one thing to do as much as you can to help make the event successful, it is another to carry 100% of the load.
- Training - NO TA Manager training was provided to any ham
- Recruitment and PIO function - Both Ham and non- ham information was pretty much non existent.
While the operations branch functioned well, I did not see any press releases, explanation to the local communities what was going on. Overall PIO functions between both states could be improved. Dumping that completely on the local level again is not a good answer.
- Explanation to hams how this race benefits the communities - Have PIOs work with convention center offices in counties.
- Cross team building- have people visit liaison with other ARES groups and DEC meetings
- Use ICS structure more - districting and hand off level so evens load out for event
- ARES be more open on plans. How are all pieces going to understand if it isn't published more publicly?
TA 25
Jim KB9MMA did one heck of a job preplanning the Racine County amateur radio participation. He and Alex N9RGX set up the wiki right away and used it as a work in progress to keep us updated. Cathy KC9EOW fixed all our spelling and grammatical errors. WB9USI 17:46, 11 June 2006 (CDT) Having Cathy KC9EOW at the site was a big plus. She did it last year and knew the ropes. She shared this information with us. WB9USI 17:20, 11 June 2006 (CDT) I doubled up new an old as much as possible, I am glad we had multiple hams some didn't make it.--KB9MMA 21:34, 11 June 2006 (CDT) The running teams thanked us for being there. They offered sandwiches and beverages. WB9USI 17:20, 11 June 2006 (CDT)
TA 25 distributed the ARRL HELLO brochures to just about every vehicle that stopped. We
thought that would explain ham radio to the non hams while they were waiting in their vans.
The brochures arrived from ARRL just in time for the event. WB9USI 21:07, 13
June 2006 (CDT)
Improve The time of the event. N9RGX 16:53, 11 June 2006 (CDT) As I get older it is harder to function on an all night event. Maybe if we broke it up into 3 hour shifts it would help. Now that I have done this I could do it alone. There were three of us at this TA. We could have split up the hours. Next time.... WB9USI 17:20, 11 June 2006 (CDT) I agree, 2-3 hr shifts, or even 6 if we had to per person would be nice. It was nice to have an overlap during the busiest hours (3-5am though). --KC9EOW 21:41, 11 June 2006 (CDT)
The runners relay teams yelled and blew their horns as their team members came in. It was light out but still only 5:30 AM. I don't think the neighbors appreciated it. WB9USI 17:20, 11 June 2006 (CDT)
Pick up of the plastic bins with GMR equipment was non existent. Maybe the pick up vehicle could follow the last runner or at least go to the TA and wait for the last runner. Then pick up the bin. WB9USI 17:22, 11 June 2006 (CDT) There were no non-ham volunteers. Did anyone from the GMR staff recruit them for their race? WB9USI 17:40, 11 June 2006 (CDT)
Redesign from TA25 to 26 runners get lost to easy.--KB9MMA 15:42, 27 September 2006 (CDT)
TA 26
While there was construction the last minute reroute of the course was unnecessary and was more confusing. Try and Get a better TA location for this route.
Interacting Systems, Agencies, and Programs
- IL/WI Section ARES
- RACINE County ARES
- Lakeshore Repeater Association & Members
- Racine, Mount Pleasant, Caledonia Police
- PIO coverage Requested.
Improvements, Conclusions, Recommendations
Action Items-:
As applicable, include a description of actions taken, assignments, associated costs or
budget, timetable for completion or correction, and follow-up responsibility.
Training Needs
- Digital Group - Possible expansion, recruitment needs for county and state
- EMCOMM and ICS training.
- Training exercises - Already planned, 2006 Triathlon, Simulated Emergency Test, and other communications Exercises
- Equipment - Further deployment of Telpacs, Portable kits, and Agency participation in all aspects
- Net control- Though we did not have to provide, a solid diverse net control base is essential in communications.
Recovery Activities (as applicable)
Only note recovery of supplies assigned to non-existent TA managers needs to be reworked.
References: Maps, charts, training materials, etc.
After action report supporting documents
External links
- Yahoo group for GMR hams
- Winlink digital protocol]
- Severe Weather Protocol*
- TA Setup Diagrams
- TA Repeater Frequencies *
- TA Log
- GMR Yahoo group non-ham
- Do you know of any non-hams who might be interested in helping with the GMR?
- Race Official Site
- Racine Net control script *
- TA Time sheet
- non-ham duties
Excerpt from monthly Wisconsin section ARRL Newsletter
Our thanks to all the Wisconsin Amateurs who participated in the 2006 Great Midwest Relay
foot race from Madison to Chicago by way of Milwaukee. A special thanks to the all the
organizations who were contacted and gave permission to use their repeaters. It was
appreciated. The voice and Winlink digital traffic was invaluable. The feedback from the participants was positive and grateful for the safety net provided to them.
