On Saturday, October 26, 2024 members of ARESDEC participated in the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) Simulated Emergency Test (SET) to practice operations that mimic an actual emergency event. For three hours, a total of 13 members operated an on-air exercise using a scenario where a cyberattack had caused widespread power outages throughout the state, resulting in medical emergencies, traffic congestion and civil unrest, as well as widespread internet interruptions. The simulated power outage lasted longer then the backup power facilities for amateur radio repeaters, requiring us to operate using “simplex” directly from to radio. This presented several challenges as it is difficult to reach all of our operating locations from a single point, requiring operators to have to relay messages to more remote stations that were not in the range of our net control station. This kind of exercise helps identify challenges and provides good practice for responding to real-world incidents.
