From WPA Section Manager, JoeShupienis W3BC:

Attention all District Emergency Coordinators and County Emergency Coordinators! Our partner agency, Red Cross of Greater Pennsylvania is requesting the service of all ARES members in both Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Pennsylvania Sections to participate in an upcoming drill. Information follows, and reflects the work of many hams and Red Cross volunteers across the state in planning and coordinating these exercises. Participation is voluntary, however we encourage all ARES members to try to participate in at least one of the run-up exercises and the main event on May 22. we expect a good number of ARES members to offer their services.

Greeting ARES WPA Section Leadership, District and County Leadership, and members; Dave Herzog, KC3CAG of the Red Cross of Greater Pennsylvania

The Red Cross has been invited to participate in a Statewide, May 2024 PEMA National Mass Care Exercise (I.E. NMCE) at Shippensburg University in Cumberland County. In addition to the Shippensburg location, the Red Cross will also be conducting simultaneous shelter exercises in each of their 10 Disaster Response Area (I.E. DRA). Please refer to the map attached.

The Red Cross EMCOMM Teams in both the Greater PA Region (I.E. GPA) and the Southeast Region (I.E. SEPA) are extending this invitation to our ARES partners and hams throughout Pennsylvania to also participate in providing emergency communications between the Red Cross 10 DRA shelters in the GPA Region and the shelter in the SEPA Region during the PEMA Sheltering exercise in Shippensburg in May.

There will be three “run up practice exercises” leading up to the actual May 2024 PEMA exercise.

Exercise #1 – March 16, 2024, 1:00pm to 4:00pm – Get Acquainted with newly setup Red Cross EMCOMM Stations (I.E. RCES) throughout Pennsylvania. – Organized by the Red Cross EMCOMM Team.

Pennsylvania Red Cross invites all PA hams to check-in with Pennsylvania Red Cross EMCOMM Stations (I.E. RCES) using VHF. Your check-in includes your call, name, county and if you are an ARES or Red Cross volunteer. All PA hams are invited to participate!

Red Cross is hosting this exercise to acquaint the ham community with the newly created Red Cross EMCOMM stations located throughout the State of PA. Stations are located in Erie (Erie County), Pittsburgh (Allegheny County), Greensburg (Westmoreland County), Johnstown (Cambria County), State College (Centre County), Lewisburg (Union County), Harrisburg (Dauphin County), Allentown (Lehigh County), Stroudsburg (Monroe County) and Philadelphia (Philadelphia County).

ARES ECs are invited to visit the RCES stations before or during the exercise. Contact the Station Lead to make arrangements. The stations are compact, so we would like to limit it to one or two visitors.

Repeaters being monitored from the RCES locations, by the Red Cross EMCOMM Team in the above counties are listed below:

N.B. the 146.850 repeater listed for State College should be 146.760, W3GA, -, 146.2.

Station Call	Location	Station Lead	Primary Repeater
KC3TFM	Erie	David Morneau KB3RIP 814-746-2938	W3GV	146.820 – pl 186.2
KC3WMS	Pittsburgh	Dave Herzog KC3KAG 412-580-4852	W3EXW	147.090 + pl 88.5
KC3WQJ	Greensburg	Dave Herzog KC3KAG 412-580-4852	W3LWW	147.180 + pl 131.8
KC3WQI	Johnstown	Carl Keller KC3KFW 610-301-3881	K3SMT	147.195 + pl 123.0
KC3WQG	State College	Brett Saylor W3SWL 814-321-5536	W3YA	146.850 – pl 146.2
KC3WQL	Stroudsburg	Len Lavenda KC3OND 570-369-6118	WX3OES	146.865 – pl 100
KC3WQL	Wilkes Barre	Len Lavenda KC3OND 570-369-6118	WB3FKQ	146.610 – pl 82.5
KC3WQK	Allentown	Sean Campbell KC3LMZ 484-347-6478	W3OI	146.940 – pl 71.9
KC3WQM	Harrisburg	Richard Johnson N3EPY 717-226-3793	W3ND	145.110 – pl 131.8
KC3WQH	Lewisburg	Tim Gelvin K3TEG 570-495-0982	KC3FIT	146.655 – pl 107.2
WA3ARC	Philadelphia	Cliff Hotchkiss KC3PGT 828-230-8067	W3QV	147.030 + pl 91.5

Exercise #2 – April 6, 2024, ARES SET exercise in both the ARES WPA and EPA Sections. Organized by the ARES WPA and EPA Sections.

The Red Cross would like to participate from their RCES locations in the ARES semi-annual Simulated Emergency Test. We are requesting the ARES WPA and EPA Sections to build the Red Cross participation into this exercise.

Information about the SET is being planned by each of the ARES sections and will be sent out by ARES Section leadership prior to the April 6 date.

Exercise #3 – May 11, 2024 – NMCE Dry Run -Red Cross/ ARES WPA and EPA Sections. Organized by the Red Cross EMCOMM Team.

PA ARES WPA and EPA Sections and RCES Station teams practice sending Red Cross Shelter Reports and ARC 6409 forms via Winlink.

Information about this exercise is being planned and will be sent out prior to the May 11 date.

Actual Exercise – May 22, 2024 – PEMA NMCE exercise in Shippensburg and 10 of the Red Cross DRA areas throughout the State. This exercise will be from 10:00am to 02:00pm. Organized by the Red Cross EMCOMM Team.

Information about this exercise is being planned and will be sent out prior to the May 22 date. However, we plan to send some Red Cross forms via Winlink between the PEMA Shelter in Shippensburg and the RCES locations and pass some VHF voice traffic between the 10+ Red Cross shelters and the Red Cross RCES locations. ARES and club stations will also be participating in the Winlink portion.