Since so many people asked for this, I though I'd put it here in GD and put links to it in the 87 Virginia threads.

Rattlesnake Rally Comms AAR

Event information:

On 1/20/2010,  a rally was held in conjunction with VCDL’s Lobby Day. The Rattlesnake Rally was not affiliated with VCDL although many of the group from Arfcom are members. Estimates vary on the number of individuals who attended the rally/Lobby Day event. Roughly 6,000-7,000 were screened to enter Northam’s Gulag, a gun-free zone created by illegal executive order. Roughly 50,000 other participants, presumably armed since they were not in the gun-free zone, gathered around Capitol Square and extended several blocks in all directions. Roughly 400 "organized" Arfcom Virginia Battle Buddies individuals participated and another 500-1000 other Arfcom affiliated individuals participated.

Pre-event assumptions:

1. It was assumed that there would be persons participating who were not licensed amateur radio operators.
2. It was assumed that participants would have varying degrees of radio-handling skills and familiarity with their radios, if they had a radio at all.
3. It was assumed that only licensed amateur radio operators would communicate on the amateur radio frequencies.
4. It was assumed that the Rattlesnake Rally comms would not interfere with local repeater use except as a fallback measure.
5. It was assumed that the cell infrastructure in the area might be heavily degraded or fail entirely due to the large volume of rallygoers (estimates initially ranged from 10,000 to 100,000).
6. It was assumed there would be some kind of centralized communications “hub” at a fixed position (Tactical Operations Center or TOC) while most radio operators would be on foot in the large crowd.

Pre-event Objectives:

1. The primary objective of the comms plan was to provide a robust, multi-modal communications setup for the VBB command staff and VBB teams that would be resistant to failures whether intentional or accidental.
2. The secondary objective was to provide updates to the “public” about what was going on at the rally both near-field (within the rally itself) and far-field (outside the immediate area).
3. The tertiary objective was to minimize the cost to participants in terms of capital outlay and learning curve time.

Planning:

The PACE system (Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency) was used to develop the communications plan.

The initial network architecture consisted of 4 nets. These were:
- C2 net for VBB leadership
- VBB intra-team communications
- Intel net to receive reports from trusted gatherers
- Arfcom Information net for “public” information output

The initial hardware architecture consisted of HF, VHF, and UHF radios, cell voice and data networks. The architecture was oriented towards each VBB element having its own internal net and at least the element lead (and alternate who would be an amateur radio operator) would monitor both the C2 net and their internal VBB net. The intel net would be on a special frequency that would be used to pass information back to the TOC.

A great deal of discussion was conducted regarding usage of amateur bands by amateurs (or non-amateurs under the direction of a control operator), unlicensed bands such as MURS and FRS, as well as licensed GMRS frequencies. There were numerous options, each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and costs to participants.

Part 2

Frequencies were chosen for the AIN via HF, VHF, and UHF from the Arfcom EMCOMM frequency list and others since it appeared several amateur radio operators on Arfcom were already familiar with those frequencies. Other frequencies for other nets required an exhaustive search for frequencies not currently in use for other purposes. In the case of VHF and UHF, great care was taken not to assign frequencies that would interfere with existing repeater frequency pairs within a 50 mile radius of Capitol Square. The Signal app was chosen as the preferred method of secure texts, voice, and video calls for as long as the cell infrastructure remained viable.

For the AIN, it was assumed that many arfcommers already had access to an inexpensive multi-band HT such as a Baofeng UV-5R or UV-8HP. Amateur radio operators not affiliated with a specific VBB might also have higher quality multi-function radios. CHIRP is an open-source code used to program radios for simplex and repeater usage frequencies. Since CHIRP is freely-downloadable, it was chosen as the primary output format for the various net frequency tables. The “public” CHIRP files would contain a primary and alternate AIN frequency with transmission disabled using the “duplex=off” feature within CHIRP. This would allow non-hams to receive information but not to transmit. In addition, frequencies for the “public” file contained a primary and alternate channel for ham radio operators to engage in bi-directional communications. As a courtesy and as a backup, frequency pairs for local repeaters, the 2m calling frequency, and the 70cm calling frequency were included in the “public” CHIRP files. Non-public CHIRP files were created with specific frequencies chosen for VBB elements.

Beyond RF communications modes, there was a suggestion to consider using goTenna Mesh units for non-cell based secure and unsecure text messages which relied on an ad-hoc mesh network. These mesh devices could be paired to a smartphone via Bluetooth. For PERSEC reasons, participants were advised to use a random ID to configure their goTenna Mesh units rather than their own cell number.

As the rally approached, the apparent increase in leftist/non-advocate on-line “chatter” indicated their may be an effort to effectively “jam” frequencies via extraneous transmissions. In addition, the VBB organizational structure became more solidified and understood. For these reasons, a new communications plan was created but not released until the OPORD was issued immediately preceding the rally. The new communications plan simplified some aspects and complicated others. There would still be an Arfcom Info net on the same frequencies as the initial plan and a C2 net but each VBB element was given a primary and alternate frequency pair to use internally. Care was again taken not to interfere with existing amateur radio operations. Numerous participants had access to FRS radios, GMRS radios, and MURS radios so individual VBB elements that had already created an acceptable internal comm method was maintained but coordinated to avoid RF fratricide.

There were an overwhelming number of individuals who took the suggestion to acquire a low-cost multi-band radio. So many, in fact, that Amazon went completely out of stock on them during the time period leading up to the rally. In addition, as per our initial assumption, there were a number of individuals with limited knowledge of the radios they had acquired. For this reason, @LT_Beaker created a tutorial text on how to program the popular Baofeng models. Both UV-5R and UV-F8HP CHIRP files had been posted publicly almost two weeks ahead of the rally. Hundreds of participants re-programmed their Baofeng radios after the OPORD was issued to correspond to the new VBB list.

During the lead up to the rally, a method was discovered by @MikeDeltaFoxtrot to use a VHF radio located near but not in the downtown area and set up a Broadcastify feed. Broadcastify allows streaming via internet of an audio source and is commonly used to broadcast police, fire, and amateur radio traffic across the country.

In addition to the voice communications available, APRS was integrated into the plan. Although there was an APRS iGate in the general area of downtown, its functionality was questionable. @Hawk_308 had constructed a portable iGate to be used in the TOC but it was significantly damaged getting ready for transport and was unavailable.

Pre-event testing

There was little time to do exhaustive testing on the proposed communications methodologies. Planemaker did minor testing with GoTenna Mesh units to verify functionality. Also, UV-5R and BF-8HP  radios were programmed with the public CHIRP files to verify the AIN frequencies were receive-only. There was only minor testing done in-situ in the area of Capitol Square to verify extent of the comms being used.

ETA: During the dinner, dozens of radios were reprogrammed. I had help from several good folks and my two laptops were melting down from usage. I think there were 4 before it was all said and done. Thank you to those that pitched in, otherwise I'd still be programming them.

Rally Day Operations

There were several radios brought in to function in the TOC. A Baofeng UV-50X2 was chosen as the primary C2 net radio. A Yaesu FT-2980 VHF-only radio was expected to be used for the AIN since it had 80W output power. F15Mech brought an FT-991A to the TOC primarily to be used as an HF radio and backup VHF/UHF radio. As the functions in the TOC began to expand, the available surface area for radio setup and power availability became an issue. In addition, there was no method for opening the windows in the TOC to be able to put antennas outside. LT_Beaker had brought a very nice home-brewed antenna that we used for the primary C2 net. A roll-up Jpole was used on an HT set up to receive some of the VBB element transmissions. Since there was no room to put the FT-2980 nor its antenna (since it would be 80W RF output within a foot or two of people), the AIN was put on a Baofeng BF-8HP with a Nagoya 771 antenna. There were at least 6 other UV-5R radios and 4 other BF-8HP radios and a Yaesu VX-8DR set up for APRS. Two SDR receivers were set up to monitor transmissions across a wide spectrum.

Early in the morning, “official” amateur radio nets were initialized on both the primary C2 net and the AIN. Amateur radio call signs were recorded along with their tactical call signs. Tactical call signs were used on the C2 net and amateur radio call signs were used on the AIN net.

During operations, messages were sent from the TOC to both the C2 net and the AIN. Numerous messages were received and logged. Most communications on the C2 net were acceptable with only one transmission where there was a noticeable signal issue of some sort. The primary C2 net was monitored by Planemaker, LT_Beaker, and F15Mech. The AIN was primarily operated by Planemaker.

Observations:

Good

The Baofeng UV-50X2 seemed adequate to the task. None of the transmissions were very long so even on 50W output, the unit did not appear to have a heating issue. The volume of the built-in speaker was sufficiently loud that all of the TOC personnel could hear the C2 net if there were no other conversations occurring.

A connectivity test was performed on the AIN whereby Planemaker requested everyone who could hear the AIN to raise their right hand. Hundreds to thousands of listeners raised their hand which indicated near-field AIN transmissions were sufficient with the 8W HT. The near-field effectiveness was confirmed when the Breitbart live stream picked up AIN transmissions from numerous Arfcom radio listeners nearby.

The Broadcastify link that MikeDeltaFoxtrot implemented had a maximum of 1056 listeners during the rally. Transmissions from the TOC were not 100% owing to the use of the HT vs. a mobile radio. However, a large number of listeners were able to hear both TOC announcements and ham radio operators using the frequency.

The GoTenna Mesh units worked reasonably well in the field. Effectiveness from the TOC to the field was limited in the same way as other transmissions owing to not having access outside. The ‘shout’ function seemed to work as advertised as did the secure text chat. The ‘Emergency’ mode was not used.

In addition to the "planned" communications, information from the Broadcastify stream was sent out over the Arfcom HF digital frequency as an ad-hoc additional channel of information flow.

Bad

The AIN transmission to the Broadcastify radio was hit-or-miss. Some transmissions appeared to be 100% and others just static. This was likely a result of not having an adequate VHF radio do the task in the TOC.

Some of the frequencies chosen for certain VBB elements seemed to have excessive non-VBB traffic. One of the FRS/GMRS frequencies had at least 3 other groups using that channel, including two individuals whose call signs were ‘Amos’ and ‘Andy’. (Boomers will get the reference.)

Part 3

Suggestions for improvement

1. As many people as possible should become a licensed amateur radio operator at least at the Technician level and preferably the General or Extra level. This would both expand the available pool of communicators as well as expand the available frequency usage. Larger VBB elements could be their own radio club. VBB elements could also partner with local clubs to obtain training and testing.

2. A portable, rack-mounted TOC solution should be considered. A 4U rolling rack would be able to hold an HF radio, tuner, VHF/UHF radio, power supply and a backup battery. Having such equipment would avoid setup time and would greatly facilitate take-down and/or required sudden EXFIL.

3. VBB elements should have an element lead with a C2 radio. A dedicated S6 per element should also be tasked with a C2 radio and an intra-element radio. Alternates for both positions should be identified.

4. A primary and backup GoTenna Mesh unit should be modified with an external antenna to provide better gain and effective employment from the TOC. Further, using random IDs during setup was good for PERSEC, bad from an ease of communications standpoint since someone (LT_Beaker in this case) needed to keep a cross-reference list of tactical call signs and Random IDs. VBB elements should consider keeping their own list of Random IDs for their personnel.

5. Assume in any large gathering that FRS/GMRS frequencies will be cluttered with extraneous traffic since blister-pack radio pairs can be acquired inexpensively at a number of retail outlets.

6. High gain antennas should be acquired for VHF/UHF operations. HF antenna options for “indoor” use should be considered as should field-expedient outdoor antennas when a TOC is set up in a tent or other temporary shelter.

7. More hams (or Trained Radio Operator in .mil parlance) should be in the communications center of the TOC to monitor VBB activity as well as “other” activity. A recommended “shift” would be roughly 2 hours before switching to some other task or taking a break. This avoids concentration fatigue and the resultant loss of communications.

8. A MMDVM hotspot should be acquired and set up to be able to use digital radios including Yaesu Fusion and DMR. Although this was requested, no one volunteered to set this up for the rally.

9. A portable APRS iGate should be constructed as per Hawk_308’s design so that APRS location and text information would be available as a situational awareness display in the TOC.

10. Drones with live video feeds should be in the VBB inventory. Although there was a TFR in place, there seemed to be little interest in enforcing it other than scanning for the fantasy “weaponized drone” fiction peddled by the petty tyrants. Sub-255g drones would arouse little suspicion and are exempt from most regulations of the FAA due to their “inherently harmless” nature (hence no need for registration as an actual aircraft).

11. Choice of TOC location should consider construction type of the building. Building structures which have a large amount of reinforced concrete and/or steel would be inadvisable given that such construction makes RF propagation exceptionally difficult.

12. The cell networks in the area were taxed heavily. Some providers networks worked better than others. The assumption that the cell networks would fail was overly pessimistic although reliability did suffer a great deal. In the event of a disaster or regional power outage, cell networks cannot be counted on to be fully functional.

Epilogue/Personal Notes

This was a very large event to provide robust comms for, much larger than I have done in the past. Generally, an event like this that has amateur radio clubs supporting it have 2-3 dozen volunteers doing various functions. Still, the Arfcom community came thru on short notice to provide a reasonably good showing.

Personally, I am exceptionally honored and grateful that @Ben chose me to lead the comms efforts. It was an honor and privilege to participate in the rally with so many capable and patriotic individuals where history was made. The comms team was outstanding and we got help and advice from numerous terrific folks on Arfcom. It’s hard to imagine a more capable community than Arfcom.

We never got the switched CHIRP file so an entire company was without communications with the rest of the group. We asked for it several times in the various threads on Sunday night and no one could give it to us.

That sucks. My understanding was that the updated CHIRP files and commo card were being distributed along with the OPORD. If that didn't happen, then there was a failure somewhere in the information exchange. I'll take the blame for that as I was told that the updated info would only be sent out to the folks that got the OPORD  or came to the dinner and that I shouldn't post those files publicly.

This may not be the place, but my thoughts from the ground:

Next time put the call out for radio operators.  I was on scene and have a technician level license.   I had multiple radios packed in case the need arose to listen to many frequencies.

I also brought a small laptop and could have had others up and running as needed at the VBB meet that morning, but I didn't have the freq list.

If you know most people will be carrying  Baofengs, make a chirp image ahead of time.  Then load times and prep go way down.

Don't worry about putting out false lists, just put out the list at the last minute if you're worried about security,

All-in-all, excellent organization of this event.  I cannot say that enough.  I only add this to make the next one better.

You did a good job.

For whatever reason, I didn't even get the second OPORD, although I had the first.

Watch your distro lists.  You should have them and keep them up-to-date as possible.  Mass communication of information is almost a full time job on an event like this, though.

Thanks for the run down. I've been quite interested to see the AAR given all of the public-facing confusion leading up to the event. A real tough situation, given all of the unknowns and adversarial environment (including purposefully-restricted logistics).

I imagine for similar events/operations in the future, the comms engineering team needs to have more spectrum monitoring capability and awareness of traffic related to both hostile interference and surveillance systems.

Our "public servants" went out of their way to prove themselves enemies of the populace, at least that much was revealed by the Lobby Day event.

True. I wasn't in the loop on the distribution of information. I know that all of the folks working this were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of "stuff" to do. That's not an excuse, just the way things like this happen when there is so much work to do in so little time. And, thankfully, we had so many willing participants it was hard to keep up. I think I answered probably 100 or so IMs just in the week preceding the rally.

Thank you all for your patience!

I know it's practically impossible to get trusted help through an anonymous forum, but maybe bring more people in for tasks.  I guarantee that was overwhelming.

You're never going to get everyone, just shoot for what you can.  None of this is criticism.

I made it a point to read everything here and on the telegram app to learn as much as I could going into it up to 10pm the night before.

Come 3am phone was powered off not to come back on until about 45 min from home on the way back so any new intel would have been of no value after the night before.

FYI

Great read for those that don’t know a whole lot about comms, and getting setup so that a big group can communicate with few problems. I didn’t realize there was that much behind the scenes work going on.

Thanks for the report and for being a part of the rally. Your report has given me some insight on future equipment to look out for that would be better than the uv5r.

Well done.

Sounds familiar. Lots and lots of folks had burner phones, too.

There's always a tradeoff between getting information out to the maximum number of "our people" while minimizing the ability of adversaries to disrupt communications. More practice will make this process more efficient, reliable, and secure. Well, as secure as it can be given there are thousands of Arfcommers.

thoughts on man portable repeater setups?  yay / nay / too much extra?

There was a consideration to making one. I actually bought the cable that would let me hook up two Baofengs to act as a repeater. There's a Youtube video on how to do it. I just didn't have the time for this round.

Edited Part 2 to include the great folks that helped me at the dinner to re-program half the Baofengs on the east coast.

OST

I'm going to have to look at that. Sounds like a really useful piece of kit to have kicking around.

Thank you for the AAR. Well done.

OST

Interesting. Tag for home.

I genuinely appreciate the thought you've put into this but as a boots on the ground guy and not a radio guy this is far too complex.

Tell us which channels to use and keep it simple. The vast majority of us aren't radio guys and won't really be radio guys even if we do get our basic technician license.

Is there a way to simplify this and minimize the jargon?

@Planemaker

Thanks for all the hard work.  You were dealt a shit sandwich, for sure.

How far are you from Manassas?

OST

You have no idea.

I've never been in the military but I've worked with a lot of folks who have. So, I thought I was familiar with most of the .mil jargon. Not nearly enough as it turns out.

The simple part is spot on, though. That's something we really need to keep in the forefront for future endeavors.

When I'm in Virginia, I'm in Chesapeake. Right now, I'm back at my detail assignment in Texas.

Did I mention that checking 100+ lbs of radio gear as checked baggage was a PITA? Pre-positioning stuff is definitely the way to go.

As for the other part, we ALL were dealt that sandwich. And, we were told to chew vigorously before swallowing. I think we told TPTB what we thought about it in a most spectacular fashion.

You did an amazing job. Pulling together so many different people and giving them several effective ways to communicate in a giant crowd is incredible.

What did you think of gotenna? I didn't buy one, but I'm thinking about it now. I'm also studying for my ham ticket, finally.

Was there an effective ear piece for the hats? Having the radio shoulder mounted seemed awkward.

OST

Same here.  A phone/email tree may be a good backup to confirm integrity of the distribution as well (contact folks to confirm whether they received it)

The Baofengs come with a mic/earpiece. The earpiece works OK, the mic part not so much as it picks up ALL the surrounding noise. With as many people as their was there, every time somebody keyed up, you could hear a half dozen other folks around them talking.

The speaker mic they sell works better. It would be great to get headsets with the adapter cabling to go to the radio. That would push the cost for each participant very high. It would, however, be more effective and less noisy.

Possibly. I read where Walmart uses MURS a lot of internal store communication. Depending on how close they are, that could be a problem. Also, there are only 5 channels available on MURS so you are limited to a small number of well known frequencies. Using the ham bands opens up that space considerably.

I brought an old handheld Bearcat scanner programmed with the AIN frequencies.  Thank God I really didn't 'need' it because there were no incidents but at the same time, I'm very grateful for all the work that OP did to give us the capability to stay informed.

It appeared the only time I could hear AIN traffic was when I was close to the Capitol building.  Perhaps the tall buildings downtown interfered with the signal?  My radio has an eight inch antenna.

Excellent work, Planemaker!

How did the little Baofengs perform?  Reliability?

Did one particular antenna for the Baofeng stand out as a better performer?

What HF band was used and what was the mission?

Thanks!

Thanks for the AAR

I had very reliable 2-way comms on the 20M digital guard net from here in Central Texas, with just a 66' OCFD at 20'.  May I ask what was the HF digital set up at the TOC?  Rig/antenna?  It seemed to work well for me.

Thanks for the report and all you guys did!

Was anybody else getting bad interference on the VHF AIN? I had a Baofeng, but the UV B5 is supposed to have a decently strong front end.

That AAR was very equipment-centric, with a little additional discussion about net architecture. My take-aways are both simple and obvious: sub-optimal TOC antennas, and sub-optimal Broadcastify receiver location, are to be avoided. But you knew all that up front. And be ready to program a million radios, that's a good one.

But, still, not very interesting from a how-did-it-work standpoint.

Rather than an AAR that discusses technical proficiency, how about an AAR that discusses the usefulness of the nets? How much traffic was handled? What kind of traffic? What impacts did it have on the event? Did all this effort turn out to be merely precautionary, a nice-to-have, or a must-have-things-would-have-turned-to-shit-without-it?

Great report @Planemaker.  Thanks.

I think our location would have worked fine for the Broadcastify feed receive if Planemaker had been able to run the planned Yaesu FT-2980 to make the announcements.  If we had known that in advance, we could have relocated, but finding a secure location with reliable fast Internet would have required some legwork.

It would be good to get more arfhams out doing field exercises together, particularly in urban environments.

Honestly, it was a really good job for the resources involved.

At dinner, I had a laptop and chirp cable ready to roll, but I couldn't get confirmation that the op order comm card (which I had programmed into chirp) was the latest version.  If I had, I would have setup somewhere less congested in the room and programmed radios.  It was just too crowded and busy at the stage to get that figured out.

I was frankly impressed at how good signal/telegram/whatsapp worked despite the crowd.  I too assumed the cell network would be useless, when it maybe should have been the primary means of communication, with gotenna and radios secondary.

As a non-mil person, while I genuinely admire and appreciate the depth of work that went into the rally - and fully recognize that people spent hours and days and money behind the scenes making sure our part of this went smoothly without getting anyone killed - I would have LOVED a one-page summary of the OPORD including some radio frequencies.

Sunday night I heard bits and pieces of the opord(?) that mentioned an 0600 start time instead of 0700. I went to bed worried - what if I was an hour late? Having three people in my room I decided not to worry about it. That worked fine.

But some basic info, on one page - a primary and secondary radio channel, a primer on disabling my radio transmit, then something like the following:

"Team arf will be divided into 4/5/6 groups. Leaders have been identified. Some leaders will muster at 0600 and proceed to advance scout the rally area. Other leaders will be leading groups from hotel to hotel to rally point starting at 0700. Consult attached map (ATTACH MAP!) for your hotel departure time. BE ON TIME. Leaders will be identifiable by yellow flag tied to left arm. During rally try to stay in area, stay with your buddy, we intend to make a formation at 1100 until 1130 at west side of square south of grace street intersection, at which point we will break for lunch, then return to formation at 1230 until 1300, at which time we will fall back to rally point Y on map, then disperse."

Us non-mil guys who are happy to attend these rallys and will be happy to support and possibly even hike with local BB groups at times, but have no desire to turn BB stuff into a new time-consuming hobby because we already have busy lives, would LOVE a bit of consideration in this. That isn't a criticism at all, simply trying to be constructive. Help us help you. Again - I have nothing but respect for the people who put this together, you did an OUTSTANDING job and I was honored to even be allowed to hobble along with you. But a dumbed-down primer for the organizationally challenged among us would be helpful. :)

OST.

The Baofeng HTs work well enough for most applications. The transmissions are not as clean as more refined radios but they are a fraction of the cost so it's a tradeoff. I'm partial to the SignalStuff flexible antennas. They're easy to coil up when not in use and they are far less likely to get bent or broken. The gain is better than the factory rubber ducky as well.

The UV-50X2 worked well enough for what we were using it for. Since we were only doing short transmissions on an infrequent basis, it didn't get into an overheat situation. They are not designed for long transmissions as they can overheat and shut down. SOmething to consider in the future.

We had planned to use HF as the "emergency" fallback should all the other modes fail or be jammed. In the future, it would be good to put out periodic bulletins on the Arfcom Guard frequencies to keep lines of communications open in the event they are needed and to keep arfhams that weren't able to be there informed of how things were going. In the case of JS8Call, it could be used in a pinch to send a text or an email to someone outside the area.

From a how well did it work standpoint, it went mostly well. From the poster above's comments, the updated commo card didn't get distributed as widely as it was supposed to so that caused gaps in the comms. For the C2 net, we probably averaged one interaction every 5 minutes or so from 0630 to ~1330 when we shut down. The type of traffic varied from observations to requests to change frequencies to an interrogatory as to whether we had drones airborne. (Nope, wasn't us, I didn't punch that dogie.) Because the rally was ultimately peaceful, the nets were helpful for situational awareness. Had something started to go badly, the C2 net probably would have lit up like a Christmas tree. At that point it would have the potential to become a too much traffic, too small a pipe kind of thing.

I'm not sure how much secure texting was going on via the Gotenna Mesh units down on the ground. Our GTM units in the TOC had a hard time hearing the ones on the ground. That, and if folks were secure texting one another and we weren't on the recipient list, we wouldn't get them anyways by design. We probably should develop a more coordinated plan for how to effectively employ them on a more widespread basis.

OST

I know we have a comms forum and I was there to gather info when I programmed my Bao.  There's a wealth of information to sift through.  Can you or someone post some links to discussions or vids that cut to the chase to do this?  Specifically for the type of use we will be doing?

Read this thread here.

Any other questions please feel free to start a thread (or search) through the HAM forum.  Prob best not to sidetrack this one.

How many channels did you end up having to come up with?  One for AIN / general public.  One for each 'squad'(?)  One for squad TLs.  One for c2.

Not counting alternates and contingencies.  Is that about right?

great write up

@planemaker
This rocks! and I can't thank you enough.
I got the first OPORD but not the last.  It didn't matter for me since I am off site, but I payed as close attention as I could.   This information is a great template for next steps.
FWIW, I am this close to testing for my Tech license.  I have printed out and saved this AAR for my notebook, towards an operational handbook for myself.
God Bless All.