T-REX 2023 has officially ended.
Great work everyone, despite the most challenging band conditions we’ve ever seen (Solar flares and CMEs)!
Feel free to continue passing exercise traffic, but the EXSUM-003 that was just sent is the final official exercise traffic to be sent from AmRRON National.
So much to debrief!
73, God bless, and thanks for training!
-JJS and the Crew
Absolutely AWSOME Trex2023, despite the terrible radio conditions from the CME(s), the team pressed-on, getting messages through when any SANE person would give up. 😉
THAT is why it’s called a communications NETWORK.
73 & Haar! de Popeye
Hopefully everyone had a successful T-Rex. I was too busy with other stuff and was unable to participate this year. Hopefully next year.
That was a GREAT learning experience.
I set up a temporary 40m NVIS dipole on our property and also a longwire… I thought for SURE I would be able to hear the Voice nets… (I was hopeful for the 80m since my longwire was 250′ long!)… but NO.
This gives us much room for testing and preparation for next year.
Our local group is going to have a After Action Debrief to talk all about Lessons Learned.
73 and Blessings to All,
Mike
A frustrating T-Rex, for sure, with much learnt for this FO. For me, some things need to be stripped down, some things need to be rebuilt; everything needs to be rethought. Will send my AAR through the appropriate channels.
VC
What a great exercise! What they say is true…practice,practice,practice. I was able to tweak and debug my station and learned a lot, especially about Amrron protocols. The communications SOI is very well thought out and, even though I still have a lot to learn, I was still able to participate in my first TREX. I’m looking forward to the next one.
Kudos to NCO’s and ANCO’s! This was my first T-Rex exercise experience and I was blown away with the excellent skill level of our Corp radio operator leadership – just exceptional! The Central Training Net prepared me extremely well in using sitrep and statrep templates for use in exchanging traffic. I identified deficiency gaps in my commstat and JS8 abilities, which I will work to improve on this coming year. Really enjoyable, well planned and executed first exercise experience!
Indeed! The NCSs and ANCSs across AmRRON are second to none. None more dedicated and professional for sure. Great that your first exercise was such a positive experience. After 11 T-Rex’s and many other ops, we still find each one to be surprisingly revealing. We never stop learning and growing!
First time with solar and ‘home brew’ power packs. What a game changer!
Pre-Ex testing had my new EmComm III producing an SWR of 1:1.7 on 40m & 1:1 on 80m. But the reality of the ‘T-REX Effect’ pushed me out to 1:5 & 1:7. Still undetermined if it was a FL issue or what. Physical conditions look great. Will also be testing the feed point.
Caged every bit of my gear then deployed QRP only for schd. nets. & then back in the cage. Had a CH3 neighbor waiting anxiously for updates. But when my ‘Outlaw in-laws’ showed up it was pretty much a premature end of Ex. for me. My most involvement to date but still so much more to go. Clearly the learning will never stop. Awesome.
Gotta do this next year
Excellent opportunity to deal with real world variables like horrid band condx. Solar and batteries held up well and I chose to use comms windows to monitor the persistent net. Condx hampered clean copy of NCS in 9 land, but the ANCS’s saw to it that the STATREPs were forwarded. First opportunity for focused use of the CommStatOne app, and it certainly works as advertised. Kudos to the author.
Absolutely nothing heard in in SW VE7 after the commencement message on JS8Call. Nothing heard on voice nets, and nothing discernable on digital. Chalk it up to band conditions. I also didn’t have the time to devote to it that I wanted. Would be nice if the WIWT News page was used more leading up to the event; I think it would add some realism and attract more attention.