Real­ism was added to Exer­cise Mag­gie by only releas­ing the details to the State Emer­gency Ser­vice and embed­ded radio ama­teurs at a very late stage, so it sim­u­lat­ed a call-out of volunteers.
The sce­nario on the week­end of Octo­ber 25 and 26 was a washed-up ship fol­low­ing a storm on Mag­net­ic Island, and those on board missing.
Arriv­ing at the SES Head­quar­ters at 7am on the Sat­ur­day were many trained vol­un­teers and four mem­bers of the Townville Ama­teur Radio Club WICEN group.
Among those gath­ered were Mark VK4FMAR, Snow VK4ME, Lyn­dall VK4ZM and Gavin VK4ZZ, who lis­tened very care­ful­ly as a rapid brief­ing was given.
Then off to a fer­ry for a 45-minute trip to Mag­net­ic Island and on the voy­age an update brief­ing was held con­cern­ing the set­ting up an Emer­gency Oper­a­tions Cen­tre respond­ing to storm dam­age, pro­vid­ing wel­fare, logis­tics and fur­ther action.
For­tu­nate­ly the hard­ened SES repeater com­mu­ni­ca­tions were work­ing. Lyn­dall VK4ZM helped with com­mu­ni­cat­ing and log­ging, while Gavin VK4ZZ observed the process­es in the Emer­gency Oper­a­tions Centre.
Radio com­mu­ni­ca­tions was the only way to co-ordi­nate the teams in the field. Checks were made of the portable WICEN cross-band repeater, bat­ter­ies and trans­ceivers on hand, in case they were needed.
Some crews went to Nel­ly Bay to clear debris. Oth­ers were on the SES Flood Boat in Nel­ly Bay, there was work­ing-at-heights safe­ty prac­tice, more brief­in­gs and a search.
The search­ing includ­ed test­ing radio pro­ce­dures designed not to give away the intent or the result of the search.
On the Sun­day after break­fast anoth­er rapid brief­ing occurred for the Exer­cise Mag­gie sce­nario that includ­ed a storm-hit boat washed up with the occu­pants missing.
To be embed­ded dur­ing dis­as­ters radio ama­teurs need to have prac­ticed the agency radio pro­ce­dure and abide by rules that the EOC may make.
For mem­bers of WICEN and the Townsville Ama­teur Radio Club they thor­ough­ly enjoyed the exer­cise, learned quite a few new things and how to fit in suc­cess­ful­ly with SES com­mu­ni­ca­tions as a team.
— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee.