so we finally did a full SET with our local ARES group and honestly it went better than i expected but also exposed some pretty embarrassing gaps that i think are worth talking about here

the scenario was a major ice storm that knocked out power to about 60% of the county, repeaters on backup power, EOC activated and we needed to pass health and welfare traffic as well as logistics messages between three different served agencies. sounds manageable right

well the first thing that fell apart was net control. our primary NCS operator had to drop out like 20 minutes in because of a real life thing and nobody had really practiced stepping up to that role. there was this awkward 10 minute gap where people were kind of just checking in and not sure what to do. our EC eventually jumped on HF to hold things together but it was messy

second thing — and this one really got me — was that two of our operators showed up with gear that wasnt programmed for the served agency simplex frequencies. they had the repeater stuff but not the simplex fallback channels. in an actual event that could be a real problem

anyway the after action review was actually really good and people were honest about what didnt work. curious if anyone else has done SET exercises and what the biggest surprises were for your group

yeah the NCS backup thing is such a common issue and honestly its one of those things that every group says theyll fix and then doesnt until it bites them again. we had almost the exact same situation a couple years back during a SET and it was kind of a wake up call. after that we started doing a thing where we rotate NCS duty every month even on just routine nets so more people get comfortable with it. made a huge difference

the programming issue is real too. we actually have a standard template now that all our operators are supposed to load before any activation, includes all the simplex channels, CTCSS tones for the served agency repeaters, even a couple of the neighboring county freqs. somebody puts it up on the group website before each exercise. doesnt solve the human element but it helps

sounds like your after action was productive though, thats honestly the most important part. ive seen groups do exercises and then not really do any honest debrief and just kind of pat themselves on the back. the ones that improve are the ones that actually talk about what went wrong

this is really interesting to read as someone whos only been licensed about eight months and just joined our local ARES group. havent done a SET yet, ours is scheduled for the fall. the part about simplex frequencies not being programmed kind of worries me because i honestly dont know if my radio has everything it should. who do i ask about that, just the EC?