Hurricane Monitoring Update

This article was published in the January 2007 issue of Key Klix. After monitoring a Hurricane Response exercise, there were some obvious updates to the original Hurricane Monitoring article. The exercise also offered some insight on how Chatham County and the various municipalities would respond after a Hurricane. If anyone else caught the exercise and has more information than listed here, please contact me at kf4lmt@comcast.net and I'll inlcude it in the next update of the Hurricane Monitoring article.


Hurricane Monitoring Update – Chatham County Response Exercise
-Mac McCormick, KF4LMT

On December 13, 2006, Chatham County conducted a Hurricane Response Exercise. The exercise involved damage assessment, firefighting, and search and rescue elements, including air support for those elements. Unfortunately bad weather prevented most of the flight ops from happening. From a radio monitoring standpoint, however, it did confirm some of the information presented last year in Key Klix.
Public safety agencies, the Coast Guard, and the military were heard active during the exercise. One the Public Safety side, the CEMA Emergency Operations Center (EOC), Pooler Fire, Port Wentworth Fire, Southside Fire, and Tybee Fire were heard. The US Coast Guard and one of their HH-65Cs from Air Station Savannah were apparently going to be used for air operations. Prior to air operations being cancelled, F-131 AVN of the Georgia Army National Guard at Hunter AAF was preparing to participate. References were made to Savannah Fire and to the Georgia Air National Guard, but they were not heard on any of the talkgroups or frequencies monitored (although this does not mean they weren’t involved, they just weren’t heard).

Chatham-Effingham TRS Activity
The CEMA 3 and CEMA 4 talkgroups were the most used during the exercise, with the CEMA 5 and the Fire Common talkgroups seeing use as well. Keep in mind that none of the following comes directly from CEMA documentation, but was inferred from reports from radio hobbyists. CEMA 3 seemed to be the exercise control and coordination channel, no exercise activity occurred on this talkgroup. CEMA 4 seemed to be the primary operating channel for the exercise, with various supervisors, entities, and the EOC coordinating damage assessment and air operations. Additionally, one of Chatham County’s helicopters, EAGLE 1 (MD 369E), managed to fly a damage assessment mission early and passed damage reports on area bridges and major highways over CEMA 4. The Fire Common talkgroup was used for communications between the EOC, firefighting, and search and rescue teams.

Talkgoup ID Designator
6288 CEMA 3
6320 CEMA 4
6352 CEMA 5
37072 Fire Common


Conventional Activity
In addition to the Chatham-Effingham TRS, there were aviation, military, and marine band frequencies in use. Two VHF aviation frequencies (AM mode) were used, one designated for Air-to-Ground use and another designated for Air-to-Air use. Both the low band FM and the VHF AM operations frequencies for F-131 AVN were in use for communications between GUARD 262 (CH-47D) and HURRICANE OPS (F-131 AVN Operations). HURRICANE OPS, by the way, was not a name made up for the exercise. It is the regular static callsign for F-131 AVN. Marine VHF Ch. 21, the regular operating channel for the US Coast Guard in this area, was in use by Air Station Savannah and one of their helicopters that was apparently preparing to take part in the exercise.

123.025 Air-to Ground (AM)
123.100 Air-to-Air (AM)

38.150 HURRICANE OPS (FM)
139.400 HURRICANE OPS (AM)

157.050 Marine VHF Ch. 21 (FM)

From the amateur radio perspective, 123.250, 123.100, 139.400, and 157.050 can be programmed into most of the newer 2-meter and dual band transceivers. I would definitely add 123.025 and 123.100 to a list of “hurricane frequencies” for the area. All aircraft operating in the area after a Hurricane would have the capability to use these two frequencies, so they would certainly see heavy use. It is also possible that 123.025 and 123.100 could be used during any event that uses aircraft from multiple agencies.