CAP Nationwide Communications Exercise?

[RADIOMAN015]

I've heard rumors that CAP might be holding a nationwide communications exercise in May 2011.  Wonder how interested CAP-USAF will be in this exercise
RM

[Eclipse]

?

CAP-USAF is fully aware, not "interested".  What do you think the SD's do all day?

[RADIOMAN015]

?

CAP-USAF is fully aware, not "interested".  What do you think the SD's do all day?

I don't know what SD's do all day :angel:  HOWEVER, with  a man of your command experience in CAP, Eclipse:

Do ya think they finally started asking the question, hey guys (in CAP) we've given you multi million dollars worth of taxpayers money to buy radio equipment, ya think you could show us how you can operate an adaptable nationwide radio network and interface the radio network at every level of command in CAP

OR are they going stare like deer in the headlights with no/ or little real understanding of anything that they see or hear

OR are they are going to pick some experts from the MARS program office and other active/reserve/guard communication units (well versed in contingency communications operations) to assist with evaluating the exercise

I personally look forward to this exercise.  We will do what we can at the local level with our intra squads portables, VHF base/mobiles/portables, & HF/SSB/ALE equipment.  We will also give an honest self evaluation of our strengths & weaknesses at the end of the exercise.

Of course if there's no funding for the exercise, than all bets are off as to who is going to show up do it on their personal dime    
RM   

[Larry Mangum]

Why do you need funding for a Comm exercise? Are you planning on running on emergency power?

[jks19714]

>> OR are they are going to pick some experts from the MARS program office and other active/reserve/guard communication units (well versed in contingency communications operations) to assist with evaluating the exercise

I'm available. 

Brand new to CAP, but long-time MARS-tian.  Used to plan our Grecian Firebolt exercises when they were held at Fort Meade.  I've had ALE here since 1999 and helped plan several other Federal ALE networks.

-- john (who is also AAT3BF/AAM3EDE/AAM3RE/AAA9SL/NCS207 and several other callsigns  )

[RADIOMAN015]

Why do you need funding for a Comm exercise? Are you planning on running on emergency power?

Depending upon exercise taskings, you could have units deploying to certain radio hot spot areas or just selected areas to set up temporary base type radio communications, or even being in a rover status mobile checking a fairly large area.  Additionally groups of highbird aircraft could be sent up to certain altitudes for multiple wing inter wing communications.    HF Radios could require emergency power either battery or generator, etc, etc, etc.

Again it could also be just test the HF SSB/ALE, primarily ALE, but maybe some conventional HF/SSB also as a reference point/comparison to ALE regional & national operations.  Too early to tell until the plan gets published
RM     

[Eclipse]

What is the point of this thread?

You say yourself the plan isn't published, so you don't even have a clue as to what it will entail, yet you insinuate that CAP-USAF
is unaware and that CAP should reach to MARS for help?

You clearly have no idea what the role of CAP-USAF is to CAP, for starters.

[Larry Mangum]

So what you are saying, is that you are off on a tirade about the exercise, without even knowing what is involved? Dude, get a life and quit being the little boy who cried wolf. Look, there are enough real problems that need to be solved without a lot of whining and [censored]ing about stuff that you either know nothing about or have nothing constructive to add.

YMMV

[wuzafuzz]

Do ya think they finally started asking the question, hey guys (in CAP) we've given you multi million dollars worth of taxpayers money to buy radio equipment, ya think you could show us how you can operate an adaptable nationwide radio network and interface the radio network at every level of command in CAP

CAPR 100-1 Section 5-5 a, a. requires annual exercises, including at the national level.  Rather than some sinister agenda from on high, I suspect the upcoming exercise is simply an effort to comply with our own regulation. 

With the narrow-band transition completely implemented we may see a focus on HF-ALE.  I predict our HF-ALE results will be weak, as expected for a new (to CAP) system.  The exercise will identify how we can improve in the future.  It will be our job as communicators to rise to the occasion.

[RADIOMAN015]

Do ya think they finally started asking the question, hey guys (in CAP) we've given you multi million dollars worth of taxpayers money to buy radio equipment, ya think you could show us how you can operate an adaptable nationwide radio network and interface the radio network at every level of command in CAP

CAPR 100-1 Section 5-5 a, a. requires annual exercises, including at the national level.  Rather than some sinister agenda from on high, I suspect the upcoming exercise is simply an effort to comply with our own regulation. 

With the narrow-band transition completely implemented we may see a focus on HF-ALE.  I predict our HF-ALE results will be weak, as expected for a new (to CAP) system.  The exercise will identify how we can improve in the future.  It will be our job as communicators to rise to the occasion.

Civil Air Patrol has not had a nationwide exercise in two years, and therefore violated their own regulation.   I do look forward to the testing and hopefully the results will justify to the AF that the expenditures will show a successful robust/adaptive radio communications system to support nationwide communications.
RM   

[arajca]

A couple of comments:
1. This exercise will not meet the requirement as listed in CAPR 100-1, since there has been more than a 24 hour notice.
2. Previous exercises focused exclusively on the HF side and ignored the VHF side. This one will work both.
3. When more details are released, we'll see what the purpose of the exercise is. Right now, all we've got is a heads up notice.
4. COWG is going to have fun since our link is NOT commercial infrastructure, but is government infrastructre and therefore is usable for this exercise.
5. For more details on this will affect your wing, stay tuned to your wing information dispersal system for more accurate information than you will find on CAPTalk, CadetStuff, or any other CAP-related online forum

[RADIOMAN015]

A couple of comments:
1. This exercise will not meet the requirement as listed in CAPR 100-1, since there has been more than a 24 hour notice.
2. Previous exercises focused exclusively on the HF side and ignored the VHF side. This one will work both.
3. When more details are released, we'll see what the purpose of the exercise is. Right now, all we've got is a heads up notice.
4. COWG is going to have fun since our link is NOT commercial infrastructure, but is government infrastructre and therefore is usable for this exercise.
5. For more details on this will affect your wing, stay tuned to your wing information dispersal system for more accurate information than you will find on CAPTalk, CadetStuff, or any other CAP-related online forum

Guess I don't have to worry about doing the wing wide ground comm exercise planning for this year!!!   (now I have only one exercise to plan for  )

I'm guessing that your VHF is linked via a state run microwave link just like another wing I'm aware of.   They cause some interfere with our operations in one of our wing operational areas since they key up all their repeaters at once.  Realistically, my feeling is CAP comm should be able to stand on it's own via its' own radio system of VHF repeaters, VHF simplex,  HF/SSB conventional, and HF/ALE operation.  I also think that on HF, digital messaging capability may work out best for us, especially with low ALE link quality analysis percentages.    HF operation should be skywave as well as NVIS.  CAP overall has not done a good job in apply NVIS principles and we will need to work on this. 

As far as notification & availability I think that one can run availability exercises just to check that throughout the year even without firing up the radios.  Wings should be able to have a radio communications network mapped out and based upon this availability check could see where the problems in the network are based upon availability.   My wing DC knows my availability for exercises.  IF it's the real thing I can get much more flexible BUT I'm sure others have jobs that their employers expect them to be at and some others are self employed so if they don't work there's no income for them.

We also need to look at the priority of using CAP owned facilities (versus private residences) for our radio communications network operations and a national directory/plan needs to be developed. 

I do believe though that CAP will eventually have to go to some small satellite terminals, primarily for digital messaging rather than voice.  With burst/compression technology costs and system loading are greatly reduced.

Again, I do look forward to this and hopefully we can get a lot more people REALLY interested in CAP radio communications than we currently have.
RM

[Captain Morgan]

A multi-agency national level exercise is being held the week of May 16.  It is based on a New Madrid earthquake scenario.  It is not "national" as in nationwide, but in the sense that multiple federal, state, and local agencies are involved.  It's scope is not limited to communications, but that is obviously an intregal part of it.  In Kentucky we have been attending preparatory meetings for months.  We will be flying repeaters, performing airborne recon on supply routes and infrastructure, and supplying radio operators to the National Guard.

As far as I know, the exercise is limited to the areas affected by the New Madrid Scenario, but that is an assumption on my part.

[arajca]

National is planning a communications exercise during the same time frame to test the ENTIRE CAP radio network. Wings participating in the New Madrid Exercise are not expected to participate in the CommEx since they will be otherwise occupied. The Commex is NOT part of the New Madrid Exercise, but merely takes place at the same time.

[wuzafuzz]

T-minus 5 weeks and counting. 

I'm curious how individual wings and squadrons are planning to participate. Particularly those involved in Constant Watch, outside the Ardent Sentry simulated disaster zone.

[RADIOMAN015]

T-minus 5 weeks and counting. 

I'm curious how individual wings and squadrons are planning to participate. Particularly those involved in Constant Watch, outside the Ardent Sentry simulated disaster zone.

Still a pending work in process in our wing with the wing comm staff & sq comm officers to have a conference call in near future.  Also wing is unsure as to what region might want to add to exercise.

Personally, this looks like a weekday exercise, I'm at work during the day (and unless there's some senior members that aren't working and are willing to be trained in setup/operation of the HF/ALE/RDP), so likely what we will plan at the squadron level will be a 1800 to 2200 hrs local participation level, HF/SSB ALE, as well as typical VHF repeater & simplex operation.

Ideally we should exercise every possible aspect of the radio communications systems (In the addition HF/SSB ALE, also include HF/SSB conventional, VHF FM/P25, repeater & simplex (base, mobiles, portables), & ISR's --- which of course the regions and wings will determine how much of this locally will be played).

No one knows if this is going to be an assigned AF Mission with potential for reimbursement if we have some roving mobiles checking out comm ranges

I would guess the minimum participation level would be CAP radio stations checking into the nets when they can and remaining for as long as they can in the net.

RM   

[lordmonar]

I'm not a CAP comm guy.....but I do comm in my day job....but I have never been empressed with the CAP Comm program.

A national comm exercise, should not be a big thing.

It should be tested every month IMHO.  A simple net check from 0800Z-0900Z should suffice.

Regional and wing nets should be tested weekly.

Heck that's how the program is set up....yet too many wings simply don't do them.

[arajca]

There is a national HF net.

Many wings and regions do run nets at least weekly, if not more.

Nets do not tell you how the system will work in an emergency.

If all the CAP players were paid employees, a national exercise would not be a big thing, but we're not. It does take more coordination to get volunteers to be available for a non-emergency. Even as a volunteer firefighter, I had similar issues on a smaller scale.

[lordmonar]

Nets do not tell you how the system will work in an emergency.

Then you are using the nets wrong.

Sorry to be blunt...but that is the bald face truth.

A national COMMEX should only have thing like knocking a node off of the net and see how long it takes to recover.  But in order to do that you have to know what the steady state of the net is in the first place.

NVWG is not part of that net as far as I know.....so the net is broken before we even injust exercise inputs.

I know getting everyone together to play is hard.......so you plan it out well in advance....and you hammer wings and regions who fail to have enought trained personnel to respond.

[manfredvonrichthofen]

I would love to see how well the net really works from a national point. Could we in INWG connect well with MEWG and CAWG and could AWG connect with MEWG and do it well? I am very interested to know our true limit capabilities so far as CONUS comms. I would be very impressed if we could all really communicate with each other without cell use.