Zone 3 Reporter: Joe Gallagher - AAR6GJ

Zone 3 News Sep 2007

There has been some confusion about EEIs and how the MARS WinLink Messaging System handles them.

The first thing to remember is that AAN3EEI radio or e-mail - automatically distributes your EEI to the appropriate federal addressees outside of MARS. The sender doesn’t have to worry about that.

The second thing to remember is that AAN3EEI automatically filters incoming messages. It looks for the key words “ACTUAL EEI” in the subject line of the e-mail header. That “IS” something for the sender to worry about. If the two-word phrase “Actual EEI” is not in the subject line of the e-mail header, your message bounces. “EEI” alone won’t get the message through. “Actual Incident” won’t go through. “EEI Report” won’t go through. Only the words: “Actual EEI” will.

The first half of the four-day Huntsville weekend was the Global Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Conference, the first held in the United States. Delegates were there from 10 countries in Europe, Africa, and the Americas. At the session titled “Partners in Emergency Response, I surprised the audience by recalling some lines from a back issue of QST, which is the ARRL monthly magazine.

Quote: “If we can put this job over it will be the biggest thing the A.R.R.L. has ever done,” the editor wrote. “Certainly it is the biggest opportunity that has ever been offered us. Let us make the most of it.” Unquote.

That was from the October 1925 issue of QST—that’s right, 1 9 2 5. And the “opportunity” QST’s editor referred to was an offer by the U.S. Army Signal Corps. The Corps proposed to partner with the League in forming the new Army-Amateur Radio Service. The League eagerly accepted. And that was the beginning of MARS. We go back a long way together-82 years in fact.

Saturday, the 18th was Hamfest time and the conference room spilled over into the hallway for the Joint Service MARS Forum.

Here we focused on four “all-important” MARS undertakings.

  First, was the year-old Army MARS partnership with the Transportation Security Administration. Twenty or so major airports have now been equipped or are about to be Equipped to operate as MARS Stations. I made the prediction that the lessons MARS members learn while deploying for TSA will surely lead to similar partnerships with other federal entities. I’m talking about emergency response teams ready to answer any kind of communications need anywhere.

  Second was the WinLink system itself—up and running and on the verge of rolling out significant software refinements. Steve Waterman and the WinLink development team had two sessions of their own during the week.

  Third was the blueprint for total interoperability agreed by the three Chiefs at Dayton this spring. I predicted that Army, Air Force and Navy-Marine Corps MARS will soon be sharing phone trees, jointly drafting disaster plans and routinely conducting three-service exercises.

I’m pleased to announce that the first concrete result of those agreements—the unified joint SOP for voice operation—has just been delivered to the Chiefs. So, in less than 90 days from Dayton, we have a product! Early fall release is still expected. We owe a big hand to the drafters, Larry Nicholson AAA9TCD for the Army, Joe Noecker NNN0ASN for the Navy-Marine Corps, and Claude Baker AAFN4VN for Air Force MARS.

  And fourth, there were the new moves toward interoperability with the ARRL and ARES, on which major progress was made over those four days. More on that in a minute. I also mentioned that we’re working on a program to expand the doorway into Army MARS, adding an IT track to the HF and VHF track, with separate training and participation standards. A CAM will be coming out shortly to recognize and accommodate the unique skills brought to Army MARS by the new WinLink specialists.

In the end, we all agreed that forming a partnership between MARS and the ARRL would benefit the entire EMCOM community. We agreed to work on an MOU, and getting it done is Grant’s primary assignment now.

I’ll close out this Huntsville report with some comments I made there about the far future of MARS, what I’ll call the ‘unpredictable future.”

One of the bigger lessons from hurricane Katrina and the War on Terror is just now coming to the fore in the policy planning realm. It’s the proposition that even with all the smarts in the world, nobody can dependably foresee the full dimension of future disasters, whether natural or the result of hostile action. Some of our leaders in Washington believe “We can prepare for every eventuality.” But, the full scope and impact of calamities to come, reaches beyond realistic human calculation or expectations.

My own vision of MARS in this kind of unpredictable future includes a tightly-knit force of well-trained, equipped and motivated communicators organized into emergency response teams for every locality at risk. Their training will have prepared them for reacting to any kind of situation whether or not it’s covered by an SOP, whether or not there has been time for instructions from the chain of command, whether or not the President or the Governor is able to request our assistance. That’s the challenge I leave you with. Let’s get prepared for becoming more ready to do whatever it takes to get the message out. “We are here to serve the greater good of America.” Live Large and TCAMO (Take Charge And Move Out)!!
Good night and God bless. This is AAA9A. Out.

“Chief Carter’s Net Comments”, 31 Aug 07

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