Sure Stephen. Here you go.
ERINEastern Region Information Network (ERIN) came about at a
Brushbeater RTO Basic (101) class in the winter if 2018. The students at that two day class for the most part had an amateur radio license. It was agreed to that we would have a net once a month to touch basis, sharpen our skills, and try new things like digital. As things start mostly with good intentions, the nets fizzled out after about a year as life in peoples lives commanded more time. Jump ahead to February 2020.
At a Brushbeater class in Northern New Jersey, a CQB class Scout suggested over a beer or two, that with the pandemic coming down the pike, I should put together an SOI (Signal Operations Instruction) for an emergency if things get bad. I did and around the middle of March 2020, I activated the ERIN net. The net was three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
We ran the net three days a week till July-ish 2020 and at that time cut it back to one day a week, Tuesday nights. In the fall of 2020 we added digital as an alternate mode of comms.
The SITREP (Situation Report) developed to today's configuration March to August 2020 to look like it does today,
> Weather:
> Fuel petrol/diesel prices & availability:
> General Supply prices & availability:
> Local unrest if any:
> Unusual military movement:.
In March of 2025, we will be on our fifth year. I typically have been the NCS (Net Control Station) for the majority of of the nets with NC Scout picking up a few along with Jackalope. OBH typically picks up some of the Digital NCS duties if he is free.
Quick commercial, I really need back-up NCS's for both phone and digital. The reason being, it is grueling doing it weekly for me, however, most important; when the SHTF I need trained and motivated folks to man the emergency SOI as we probably will go to nets seven days a week, at least at the beginning of the emergency. Today, if I could have four dedicated NCS for both modes, we could rotate the duties so someone would only have to be NCS once a month.
As a side note, I would like to add a third mode later this year with Sir John Honey Bucket leading the charge. That mode would be CW (Continuous Wave or Morse Code).
Local ERINI was the county ARRL, ARES (American Radio Emergency Service) EC (Emergency Coordinator) for a time and now some consider me the DEC (District Emergency Coordinator) for the six counties in my district.
First, I encourage all stations who are ARES volunteers and members of local clubs to join in to the digital and phone ERIN nets for training, fellowship, and to test their comms. That is why when you tune into a ERIN nets, there are a lot of stations from NE Pennsylvania.
Next, there is an Emergency SOI for NE Pennsylvania too. It involves the use of local repeaters using 440/2-meters and HF (High Frequency) radio comms. The SITREP is basically the same with miscellaneous being added as number "6" on the report. Again we meet once a week at 1900E hrs. Wednesday nights on six locally linked repeaters for phone. We have between 15 to 30 check-in's every week. The local HF nets are typically ad hoc nets, where someone Signals that at "X" time, on "Y" frequency a local net will commence. It is called the
"Beverage & Snacks Net".
Other Forms of CommsFirst, when we started ERIN, we all joined Messenger. Then when we realized that Messenger was not encrypted we switched to Signal for an encrypted text format. Signal has proven to be a great ap that seems to work even when everything is down. We realize that Signal may be better than Messenger for security, it isn't bullet proof. So for things that we would not want to have to read out loud in a court of law, while on a witness stand, we use Session.
Speaking about encryption, most of the regulars, local and ERIN use either Tutanota or Proton for encrypted email comms.
Next, the core group of ERIN has developed a
Brevity Code list to be used when across the airwaves comms needs to be private. Of course we all know that private brevity code use on the airwaves is a violation of FCC rules and we would never use such codes except in dyer circumstances, e.g. Blue helmeted men & women show up at our door. Brevity codes can be words or OTP (One Time Pad) codes.
So Stephen, did I answer your question,
I'm sure it's probably buried among all the posts here, but could someone please provide an overview of ERIN - the objectives, the background/history, goals for the near and long term future, etc.? In other words, "What is it now and what would you like it to be?" 73 Brother...
