Saturday May 3rd 2008 18.00 - 22.00 UTC

IARU Region 1 invites the HQ-Stations of all IARU member societies and stations of Emergency Communications Groups to participate in a Global Simulated Emergency Test on Saturday May 3rd, 2008 at 18.00 – 22.00 UTC. The operation will take place on and near the emergency Centre-of-Activity (CoA) frequencies on 80, 40, 20, 17 and 15 metres (+- QRM ).

The objectives of the test are;

1/ increase the common interest in emergency communications.
2/ test how usable the CoA frequencies are across ITU regions.
3/ create practices for international emergency communication and
4/ practice the relaying of messages by voice and data modes.

Please keep in mind that this is not a contest, it is an emergency communications exercise !

Following the recommendation of GAREC-07, participating stations are requested to use /D in their callsign (D=distress/disaster) where permitted by their licensing administration.

Traffic may be passed on voice (SSB) or Data modes as detailed below.

Voice mode
Each IARU Region will have a HQ station operating on voice as follows:
Region 1 – OF3F/D
Region 2 – The Maritime Mobile Service Net (MMSN) will receive messages on 14.300MHz. Please respect their normal operating procedures, follow the net controllers instructions and give priority to emergency traffic. The net controller schedule is;

18.00 - 19.00 UTC KA0OIT
19.00 - 20.00 UTC NQ5H
20.00 - 21.00 UTC WB6LNH
21.00 - 22.00 UTC AG4SI

Region 3 – JA1RL/D on 40 20/15 & 17 m bands only

HQ stations will be QRV simultaneously on all CoA frequencies appropriate to their region +- QRM as shown below.

Region 1	Region 2	Region 3
3760	3750 or 3985	3760
7060	7060, 7240 or 7290	7060
14300	14300	14300
18160	18160	18160
21360	21360	21360

Stations intending to participate are requested to send their callsigns to globalset08@raynet-hf.net before the exercise so that HQ stations can be aware of the number of stations calling them. A list of participating stations will also be available at www.raynet-hf.net

To practice relaying messages, each participating station is allowed to send six (6) messages: three during the first two hours and three more during the last two hours of the test.

After sending their own messages, participating stations should start to relay messages of other stations, when a message has been relayed twice it should then be sent to the HQ station of their own region. It is very useful if messages 'jump'' between countries and/or Regions.

Participating stations should call 'CQ GLOBALSET' giving their callsign and organisation ( ARES,RAYNET, NETMAR etc. ).

Each participating station will form their own message as follows;

4U1ITU = the callsign of the station
/1/ = the message number, 1,2 or 3 in the first half of the exercise, 4,5 or 6 in the second half.
/20/17/15/ = Bands available for use – use the meter band designation NOT frequency.
03 = There are 3 operators at 4U1ITU
1 = Do you have emergency power at your location.
1=No
2=Battery
3=Generator ( of any kind )
IARC= International Amateur Radio Club of ITU HQ
via... via... = the callsigns of stations which have relayed this message
e.g. 4U1ITU/1/20/17/15/03/1/IARC via.... via.... etc.

On voice we will use the word 'slash' to separate the parts of the messages.

Regional HQ stations are not sending messages, only receiving them. To avoid QRMing the HQ stations, please move to frequencies near the CoA for contacts with others.

To create a more realistic situation, please limit your transmitting power during the exercise to 100 Watts. Special value is given to stations operating mobile/portable and/or on emergency power.

Data modes
There will not be any HQ stations for data modes, data stations should use the frequencies defined for their preferred mode in national bandplans. This makes the use of 'CQ GLOBALSET' and registering your intended participation particularly important.

Data stations should send the same message format as voice but 'structured' modes such as Winlink, ALE, PSKmail should send their messages directly to globalset-data@raynet-hf.net , other data modes should attempt to relay the messages twice before sending them to globalset-data@raynet-hf.net for analysis.

Conclusion
Please send your comments, pictures and suggestions for future exercises to; globalset08@raynet-hf.net , logs are only required from the three Regional HQ stations for analysis. The report of the event will be presented at GAREC 08 in Friedrichshafen.

To be fair to all regions we use three different time slots for the exercise, the next exercise will be on November 8th 2008 at 04.00 -08.00 UTC with the event in May 2009 being at 11.00 – 15.00 UTC.

Seppo Sisatto, OH1VR
Emergency Communications Co_Ordinator
IARU Region 1

Greg Mossop, G0DUB
GlobalSET Organiser