Incident Command
System Training

ARES Registration:

Berkeley County, WV

Jefferson County, WV

Montgomery County, MD

Washington County, MD

Allegany County, MD

"Blast From The Past"
WN3NQJ/WA3NQJ

ARES is an activity of the American Radio Relay League which seeks to provide an organized framework for hams to offer their services for emergency and public service communications.

The ARRL is the largest national organization of Radio Amateurs. It is a private, non-profit association, whose purpose is to support a wide variety of Amateur activities. Central to the ARRL’s mission is the Amateur Radio Emergency Service. ARES is a parallel organization to RACES.

RACES is mandated to primarily support state and local government agencies during times of emergency. In many jurisdictions, ARES functions much the same as RACES, and is a part of the local government’s volunteer communicator program. In addition, ARES takes on a wide range of assignments supporting agencies such as the Red Cross, Salvation Army or the National Weather Service, among others. Also, ARES operators help coordinate such events as parades, marathons, walk-a-thons, charity races and the like.

RACES and ARES have considerable overlap in their missions, but there are some roles which are distinct. Generally, RACES does not get involved in coordinating parades or bike-a-thons. Either ARES or local radio clubs do those events.

In an emergency, where there is a RACES organization, ARES may work with non-governmental agencies, and RACES will function as a part of the local government.

ARES Organization

ARES is administered on the local level by an Emergency Coordinator (EC), generally appointed by the ARRL Emergency Coordinator at the state (or section) level. There may be one or more District ECs appointed who are responsible for several counties or a specific region of the state.

Normally each county or similar jurisdiction has a local EC.

ARES and RACES Working Together

Where RACES and ARES are separate organizations, with separate leadership and goals, there often arises problems of duplication of effort and competition for resources ... the most important of which is people.

There has been a strong movement to combine RACES and ARES, providing for dual membership. This allows a consolidated organization which avoids competition for people and other resources, and avoids duplication of effort. The consolidated organization gives flexibility and access to a wider range of resources in an emergency, and allows the group to take advantage of training opportunities such as the Simulated Emergency Test without running in to the restrictive nature of "official" RACES operations.

It is a common arrangement in many jurisdictions that the RACES Radio Officer and the ARES Emergency Coordinator are the same person. under this arrangement, any Amateur enrolled in the RACES program was automatically registered in ARES.

It is important to realize that the how ARES and RACES interact will vary widely, even within the same state. However, there are some important things that ARES provides.

First, ARES offers organization and structure for local operators to have contact with ARES operators outside of the local county. RACES is generally restricted to in-county operations using primarily local residents.

In a wide-area disaster, ARES would provide the framework for communication with other jurisdictions within the state and in neigboring states, as well as wide area communications using HF frequencies.

ARES also provides the organization for participation in the ARRL Simulated Emergency Test, along with other cross-jurisdictional training activities and public service events.

ARES could provide operators from other jurisdictions if we had a large, long term disaster within the local area, even if it didn’t affect other jurisdictions. RACES is a service created by the Federal Communications Commission in Part 97, Subpart E of its rules. The RACES service is part of the Amateur Radio service and all RACES operators are licensed Amateur Radio operators. RACES was originally designed to be part of Civil Defense. In the event of a national emergency or war, properly enrolled and trained RACES operators would be allowed to continue operations in support of the government when all other Amateur operations would be shut down. This aspect of RACES rules is still part of the regulation and restricts, to some degree, RACES activities.

As times changed, the RACES mission and regulations have changed, and RACES has evolved into a volunteer service dedicated to the support of local and state government in times of emergency and natural disaster. The RACES program is most often, but not always, administered in the local or state government's emergency management organization (the successor to Civil Defense). In some places, RACES is administered by the police, sheriff's office or a fire service officer.

RACES provides for Amateur Radio operation for emergency purposes only, during periods of local, regional or national emergencies. The RACES organization of Amateur Radio operators is vital during such events as snow emergencies, hazardous materials accidents, major fires, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and incidents involving evacuations or mass casualties.

Frequently, normal communication systems sustain damage or are overloaded during these types of emergencies. Often communications must be set up between organizations or locations for which there is no normal communications path. It is then that RACES operators are invaluable to emergency managers.

During national emergencies, RACES operators are the only Amateur Radio operators permitted on the air. In an emergency, RACES operators are assigned specific frequencies within authorized frequency bands as directed by emergency management officials.

"All communications in the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service must be specifically authorized by the civil defense organization for the area served." - Federal Communications Commission

Every RACES station is part of one or more emergency communications networks. These networks provide vital communication for:

- Local government emergency operating centers

- State government emergency operating centers

- Remote locations.

The head of the local RACES organization is the Radio Officer who is appointed by the appropriate person within the local government. The Radio Officer is almost always a volunteer from within the RACES organization. When activated, the Radio Officer and all RACES volunteers become part (unpaid employees) of the government agency which has activated the group.

Reliable communication is essential to emergency response. RACES can make the difference between life and death. Amateur Radio operators (FCC licensed) can help save lives.

You can get more information on RACES by contacting your local or state emergency management office, the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the Federal Communications Commission.