Operation "The Big One"
January 16, 2021
0800 until 1400 Hours
Exercise forms
Message information
Amateur Radio Participants
Registration for hams and agencies
Agencies Participation with Communications
Goals and Procedures
This page was last updated: January 18, 2021
Message Building
Information
After Action Report Form
Photos The Big One
After Action Summary
Completed 205s
To View Completed After Action Reports
Operation "The Big One" is a scenario of a 7.7 earthquake in the active seismic area
of the Mountain Lake area of Giles County Virginia. Major damage would be experienced in Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Pearsburg and Radford Virginia. There is possible damage to the aging X-Ray Lake Dam near Pulaski Virginia. This lake is 115 deep, 27.7 miles long and covers 4472 acres. This stands on the New River.
This places all communities along New River down stream from the X-Ray Lake at risk of catastrophic flooding. This also includes the Radford Arsenal which employees thousands of people. Virginia Tech and Radford University would experience major damage.
Internet service, phone service and power has been lost over about a 30 mile radius from the epic center of the quake. Communications support will be needed from throughout the Commonwealth.
We are asking that all long haul traffic use Winlink to send their traffic. Local traffic may be sent via voice, digital or CW. If you don't have Winlink skills or equipment, please send your traffic to a station from your area that can send your Winlink traffic for you, Do not use Telenet for Winlink traffic.
This year no "canned traffic" will be prepared for you. You must prepare your own traffic based on the scenario of a massive power outage, loss of phone service and Internet service in the impact area. I will be sending a number of messages to each participate that will require a reply. Please send a generous amount of traffic to stations in your local or regional area. Remember that at least 80% of all traffic will be local in nature in a real disaster. You will have Winlink contact information on all radio amateurs that are participating in the exercise so you will have a large number of people that you can send traffic. Please use ICS-213 General Message forms for all formal traffic. Use ICS-205 forms that you send to me so that it can be posted and people that want to contact you can know how to route their traffic. Keep a log if you wish to complete an ARRL or AUXCOMM taskbook (these are two different taskbooks with different requirements). This log documention should be a help in getting tasks approved for sections of your taskbooks. The ICS log is ICS-309. This log can be found at the "Exercise Forms" button on the links on the left side of this page.
Simulated Emergency Test
“Operation The Big One”
Most areas beyond 50 miles from the center of Giles County will have Internet, power and phone service. Your VHF gateways and repeaters should be up and running. Communications into and out of the affected area will be relying on Amateur Radio. All repeaters on the Bald Knob (Mountain Lake) section of Giles County would be out of operation.
VHF/UHF voice remains the most efficient way for your local short traffic.
BE SURE TO INCLUDE "THIS IS A DRILL, THIS IS A TEST" on all traffic.
DUE TO COVID-19 MOST ALL STATIONS WILL BE OPERATING FROM HOME OR A COMMUNICATIONS TRAILER. A NUMBER OF HOSPITALS IN EASTERN VIRGINIA WILL HAVE OPERATORS INSIDE THE HOSPITALS. ALL OPERATIONS WILL SIMULATE OPERATING ON BEHALF OF AN AGNECY. IN YOUR REGISTRATION SPECIFY IF YOU ARE OPERATING FROM YOU HOME.
If you have questions, contact me,
Glen Sage, N4DN
N4DN@arrl.net
276-398-3548
Registered Hams in pdf
Skywarn
Registration Is Now Close! !
