CUL (T)

[Capt M. Sherrod]

I have a SAR/EX coming up this weekend that I will be participating as a CUL(T).  Does anyone who has BTDT have any advice on what to study and or read up on specifically related to this specialty?  The mission base is my home squadron / wing HQ so I am familiar with the layout and all of the equipment is already set up.  This is my first mission as CUL (T).

Looking at the specific task guide items, I am not even sure on where to begin to get some of that information.  I'm not looking for anyone to "hand me" anything, but a point in the right direction with some helpful resources would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you in advance for the guidance.

[ZigZag911]

Since it's your home unit, if possible, test all your equipment early this week, so any minor problems can be fixed.

Make sure you have either an emergency power source, or a plan to use alternate equipment (e.g., mobile units in vehicles) in case of a power failure.

Ideally you need an MRO to handle the radios, and an MSA or trainee to keep a log & record messages. One or two cadets to serve as 'runners' are a must if you don't have internal communications with Ops, ground & air branch, and IC.

Arrive early to check your equipment again and get organized.

Have a supply of blank message forms, pens/pencils, note pads.

Be sure to rotate your operators, get them breaks, lunch period.

Keep idle talk in comm area minimal, especially during high activity periods.

Restrict access to comm area to personnel who have legitimate business there, or are on duty.

Stay flexible!

Enjoy!

[KC0IEA]

There is a short power point presentation that may give you some additional hints on the National Operations page.
http://www.cap.gov/documents/CULppt.ppt

Talk to the CUL who will be mentoring you through this for their advice.

Assume that in the course of the exercise you will have at least one late check in (probably at the direction of the organizers).  One way we have found that makes catching late check ins easier is requiring all checkins at the top and bottom of the hour. This needs to be emphasized at the briefing.  As I put it I don't care if you take off at 0859 I expect a 0900 check-in. 

And like ZigZag911 said

Stay Flexible and have Fun.

[Psicorp]

My experience has been that Comm is always shorthanded at busy excersizes.   Members who prefer to do something other than Comm generally try to avoid the Comm area for fear of being drafted 

Expect several new-ish Cadets with little radio handling experience.  They don't need their BCUT to be useful and can start working on their MRO certification.   What seems to work best is to have one person per radio (V1/2, V3, and V4) if you have aircraft up, and HF if you have that going too.   Extra ISRs or extra HTs come in handy too.

The first thing I would do is either write up or look over the Comm Plan. The Comm Plan will detail out what frequency (designators) everyone will be on and what additional equipment will be needed and by whom (ISR / HT).     Assign check in times for Ground Teams and Aircrews.  This can be done on the top and bottom of the hour or quarter after and quarter till the hour.  You can even split that up between Ground Teams and Aircrew to reduce the flood of traffic.  Give a copy of the Comm Plan to every Branch Director and to the I.C..   It should be reviewed for everyone at the morning briefing.

The next thing you need is a status board.   Dry erase ones work great.  We usually have different color markers do denote Aircraft and Ground Teams.    The status board lets you quickly see who's where, when they last checked in, when they need to check in, what sortie they are on, and their last intentions.  Having someone who's job it is to update the board will make your life so much easier.

If you have aircraft up, when they check in be sure to get a fuel status...Air Ops will want that information.  Ground Ops will want Lat/Long updates, so get those at check in as well

Have fun!

[Al Sayre]

Remember that a SAR-Ex is not a Comm-Ex.  If you can't make contact with an Aircraft or GT by radio, don't get wrapped around the axle doing radio checks, tests and incessant calls that get no response.  Use your cell phone or a land line and call them by any means possible, and be sure to let the AOBD/GBD or IC know when a team misses a check in.  The actual communication to be sure that the crews are OK is more important than whether your SWR is reading 3.5... GBD & AOBD's should add every crew member's cell phone numbers to the 109 or 104 held at MB just in case...

[Eclipse]

Remember that a SAR-Ex is not a Comm-Ex.  If you can't make contact with an Aircraft or GT by radio, don't get wrapped around the axle doing radio checks, tests and incessant calls that get no response.  Use your cell phone or a land line and call them by any means possible, and be sure to let the AOBD/GBD or IC know when a team misses a check in.  The actual communication to be sure that the crews are OK is more important than whether your SWR is reading 3.5... GBD & AOBD's should add every crew member's cell phone numbers to the 109 or 104 held at MB just in case...

Generally most SAREx's have a regular check-in time.  My experience has been that one group (i.e. air) will be on the hour and the half, and one group (i.e. ground) will be on the 15's and 45's, or some derivative of this.

One issue which comes up is that everybody tries to check in at once, clogging the channel and stepping on each other.

To counter that, for several years we have been running check-ins as Roll-calls, FROM the mission base, instead of waiting for them to call us - I prefer this 100% over the calls ins.

Goes something like this:

Base: "This is mission base - all teams prepare for roll-call.  When contacted teams, will report their position (briefed at base as Long/Lat, format, etc.) and status."

Base: "Ground Team Alpha this is mission base"

GT Alpha: "This is Ground Team Alpha, ops normal at N XXX XX.X, W YYY YY.Y, we are continuing the search"

(etc., etc., )

Air is handled the same way, in some cases, when we have a highbird MRO, he does the role-call and then reports in to mission base.

Other communications are handled as necessary in a normal fashion between the check in times.   Obviously an emergency situation would be handled just like any other time when a frequency is in use - breaking in as soon as their is clear space, but routine requests or other traffic, including inter-team traffic, is held quiet during the check-ins to make things easier for everyone.  The MRO's have a lot of info to jot during the check-ins, and having them go 1-2-3 makes this easier.

I'd also recommend coming up with a standard form that has the above info (or whatever you need locally in columns.

With regards to message handling - if you can, get things on 2-, or 3-part forms.  This way when you pass a message (in either direction, the receiver can acknowledge by initial he got the message, and any response can be sent back as well.  This will save you "discussions" about messages never passed.

Also - make sure that any communications of any kind, cel, radio, internet, are logged by the respective branch directors, etc., on some kind of standardized ICS log form - this should then become part of that section's paperwork.  No messages that are mission related should go unlogged. This is a CYA for everyone.

You should have a CUL status board that shows last/next check in, LNP, and status.

YMMV with designators, times, etc., but I can tell you that mission comms handled this way have resulted in high marks for evaluated exercises, and add a lot more structure to the situation.

[Short Field]

GT Alpha: "This is Ground Team Alpha, ops normal at N XXX XX.X, W YYY YY.Y, we are continuing the search"

Due to OPSEC considerations, we are trying to avoid passing coordinates in the clear.  CAP has a standard way to encode coordinates to avoid having press helicopters beating the rescue helicopters to the crash site.  It is key that this gets practiced in SAREXs so that we are familiar with coding and decoding coordinates during an actual SAR.   

[IceNine]

I also found the documents from CA WING helpful found here

http://cawg.cap.gov/html/operations/es.htm

[Short Field]

CAWG rocks when it comes to their ES training materials.   I am just thankful there is no copywrite on their stuff and we don't worry about plagiarism in CAP 

[Eclipse]

GT Alpha: "This is Ground Team Alpha, ops normal at N XXX XX.X, W YYY YY.Y, we are continuing the search"

Due to OPSEC considerations, we are trying to avoid passing coordinates in the clear.  CAP has a standard way to encode coordinates to avoid having press helicopters beating the rescue helicopters to the crash site.  It is key that this gets practiced in SAREXs so that we are familiar with coding and decoding coordinates during an actual SAR.   

Do you have a guide to the coordinate encoding? 

This is the first I've ever heard of it.

[Capt Rivera]

GT Alpha: "This is Ground Team Alpha, ops normal at N XXX XX.X, W YYY YY.Y, we are continuing the search"

Due to OPSEC considerations, we are trying to avoid passing coordinates in the clear.  CAP has a standard way to encode coordinates to avoid having press helicopters beating the rescue helicopters to the crash site.  It is key that this gets practiced in SAREXs so that we are familiar with coding and decoding coordinates during an actual SAR.   

where can I find the info on encoding & decoding coordinates?

[SarDragon]

CAWG rocks when it comes to their ES training materials.   I am just thankful there is no copywrite on their stuff and we don't worry about plagiarism in CAP 

COPYRIGHT, folks. We're talking about rights, not writing.

[0]

GT Alpha: "This is Ground Team Alpha, ops normal at N XXX XX.X, W YYY YY.Y, we are continuing the search"

Due to OPSEC considerations, we are trying to avoid passing coordinates in the clear.  CAP has a standard way to encode coordinates to avoid having press helicopters beating the rescue helicopters to the crash site.  It is key that this gets practiced in SAREXs so that we are familiar with coding and decoding coordinates during an actual SAR.  

where can I find the info on encoding & decoding coordinates?

Due to OPSEC I highly doubt that the materials are published here on the internet.  One thing I know we've done for years to prevent that possiblity even on a training exercise is to relay all sensitive information over the phone.

[Ricochet13]

I'd be interested in an OPSEC or other reference for the encoding of coordinates.  Don't think I've ever run across it on any CAP sites.  Not something that we do in our area, nor does the USCG (helos or boats) or USCGAux flights. 

Would love to try it out.

[Eclipse]

Due to OPSEC I highly doubt that the materials are published here on the internet.  One thing I know we've done for years to prevent that possibility even on a training exercise is to relay all sensitive information over the phone.

As I said, this is the first time I've ever heard of anyone doing something like this, and frankly don't see the need.

Our operations are not classified, they are not even secret, and unless we are talking about some kind of Enigma-like situation using actual encryption, its not going to take anyone who cares very long to figure out the coding scheme.

I agree that as long as they are available and working, cel phones belong as part of the com plan - heck even during Katrina a lot of systems stayed up or were back up fast, especially the data layer - but they should not be the primary means of communications, and if they are, you risk the USAF yanking them on you during an eval.

I'm still curious to see how this encoding schema actually works.

If you can't publish it, please PM me.

[ammotrucker]

We have for a long time only used  the minutes and seconds of lat and long.  This is based on the fact that I should know that GT ALpha is in hypothetically is located in Grid 102b.  This would then elimanate any news choppers for a time. and you can then transmit from mission base to any other agencies via phone or other communication means the actual Coordinates.

[Psicorp]

Remember that a SAR-Ex is not a Comm-Ex.  If you can't make contact with an Aircraft or GT by radio, don't get wrapped around the axle doing radio checks, tests and incessant calls that get no response. 

[larrycableguyvoice]  Now that right thar's just silly tawlk, sir    [/silliness]

A SAREx that doesn't  have comm issues is going far too well. 

[0]

Due to OPSEC I highly doubt that the materials are published here on the internet.  One thing I know we've done for years to prevent that possibility even on a training exercise is to relay all sensitive information over the phone.

As I said, this is the first time I've ever heard of anyone doing something like this, and frankly don't see the need.

Our operations are not classified, they are not even secret, and unless we are talking about some kind of Enigma-like situation using actual encryption, its not going to take anyone who cares very long to figure out the coding scheme.

I agree that as long as they are available and working, cel phones belong as part of the com plan - heck even during Katrina a lot of systems stayed up or were back up fast, especially the data layer - but they should not be the primary means of communications, and if they are, you risk the USAF yanking them on you during an eval.

I'm still curious to see how this encoding schema actually works.

If you can't publish it, please PM me.

I haven't heard of anything being encoded either I just mean if there is a policy out there it wouldn't be for the whole world to find.  Granted like you said it wouldn't take long for someone to crack the code either way, but this way if there really is some sort encoding they don't have the cipher in front of them.  And while yes our work isn't secret perse it's Operational Security so that while we're on the search we're not being hampered by the news crews on the ground or thier chopers be in the way of our aircrews.

[Short Field]

I am trying to find the source document on this and a good reference to post.  However, the key element is that it easy and quick to do, using information not quickly available to the public.  It is not intended to be "unbreakable", just a way to keep from broadcasting crash site locations in the clear. 

Any simple code/decode method that everyone (Mission Base, aircrews, ground teams) is briefed on and can use is better than broadcasting in the clear.  When you have a major search with lots of news choppers (and sightseers), you don't need them racing to a possible crash site.   It is even worse for the searchee's family, when they broadcast you found the site and it turns out to be something else - old wreckage, trash dump, etc.

I will track down the sources on what I was briefed to use.
       

[Ricochet13]

To further expand on my interest, code words for RTB are no longer being used, everything is sent in the clear to avoid confusion, especially when working with other agencies.  I'm also not sure that having been dispatched on a UDF/GT mission I would be contacted and advised of all air and ground sorties that were dispatched after me.

It did occur to me however, that when we deploy our APRS systems in the next two weeks, the transmission of coordinates will not be necessary, so that may solve the problem that was associated with news helicopters rushing to get a view of a crash or other incident site.  I also seem to remember that aircraft contracted to the USFS have an onboard system for tracking which would give location and flightpath for each sortie.  Anyone know about that system?

It also occurred to me that should these "news hawks" become a problem, airspace could be closed to non mission aircraft.  I may be wrong on that though and some of you may know far more that I do.