# 16 - Will The Power Be Out Tomorrow?
Over the past few days mass-hysteria has been taking place on social media websites like Facebook and YouTube that we need to discuss.
A large number of people are making videos claiming that information was "leaked" about the Department of Defense plans to shut off the national electrical grid, turn off telephones, shut down cellular phone service, and shut down the internet tomorrow so that Antifa can continue with their plans to overthrow the government and kill American citizens and we will not be able to contact anyone for help.
This is complete and utter bullshit and is so far from the truth that it is incomprehensible to any sane, lucid, person who uses common sense and rationality when looking at things.
Lets take a look into the source of their claims of utter destruction that will cause millions of Americans to start dying tomorrow.
On October 2, 2017 the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), which is the national association for amateur radio, posted an announcement to ARRL members on the ARRL.org website about the upcoming radio communications drill that will take place November 4th through the 6th.
During the drill, the ARRL radio operators and MARS radio operators will work together to practice emergency radio communications with each other on a nationwide level so that they are better prepared in the event of a future emergency.
This same type of training is done in every community across the country on a regular basis between amateur radio operators and local civil defense and emergency management organizations so that if a tornado, hurricane, or any other form of disaster happens, amateur radio operators are prepared to step in and assist emergency organizations, law enforcement, fire, EMS, and other first responders with their communications needs during the event.
In 2013, Military Auxiliary Radio System (MARS) operators started doing this same type of training between themselves every three months so that they are better prepared in an emergency to assist with the communications needs of the military.
Once each year the MARS radio operators and the ARRL radio operators join forces to conduct a joint training exercise to test nationwide radio communications between military and civilian radio organizations so that they are practiced at working together in a disaster situation to provide communications when all other forms of communications may be unavailable.
The posting from the ARRL website reads as follows:
Elements of the US Department of Defense (DOD) will conduct a “communications interoperability” training exercise November 4-6, once again simulating a “very bad day” scenario. Amateur Radio and MARS organizations will take part.
“This exercise will begin with a notional massive coronal mass ejection event which will impact the national power grid as well as all forms of traditional communication, including landline telephone, cellphone, satellite, and Internet connectivity,” Army MARS Program Manager Paul English, WD8DBY, explained in an announcement.
During the exercise, a designated DOD Headquarters entity will request county-by-county status reports for the 3,143 US counties and county equivalents, in order to gain situational awareness and to determine the extent of impact of the scenario. Army and Air Force MARS organizations will work in conjunction with the Amateur Radio community, primarily on the 60-meter interoperability channels as well as on HF NVIS frequencies and local VHF and UHF, non-Internet linked Amateur Radio repeaters.
Again this year, a military station on the east coast and the Fort Huachuca, Arizona, HF station will conduct a high-power broadcast on 60-meter channel 1 (5330.5 kHz) on Saturday from 0300 to 0315 UTC. New this year will be an informational broadcast on Sunday, on 13,483.5 kHz USB from 1600 to 1615 UTC. Amateur Radio operators should monitor these broadcasts for more information about the exercise and how they can participate in this communications exercise, English said.
“We want to continue building on the outstanding cooperative working relationship with the ARRL and the Amateur Radio community,” English said. “We want to expand the use of the 60-meter interop channels between the military and amateur community for emergency communications, and we hope the Amateur Radio community will give us some good feedback on the use of both the 5-MHz interop and the new 13-MHz broadcast channels as a means of information dissemination during a very bad day scenario.
Contact English for more information or questions about this exercise.
The conspiracy theorists jumped on this posting almost immediately with their "the sky is falling" rhetoric claiming that the Department of Defense announced their plans to use an EMP to take out the electricity, phones, and internet over the weekend.
Apparently these conspiracy theorists have a very low reading comprehension level because they are unable to understand what they just read. The posting clearly said “This exercise will begin with a notional massive coronal mass ejection event which will impact the national power grid as well as all forms of traditional communication, including landline telephone, cellphone, satellite, and Internet connectivity,”
What does the word notional mean? Lets take a look at the definition and see:
no·tion·al
ˈnōSH(ə)n(ə)l/
adjective
existing only in theory or as a suggestion or idea.
"Existing only in theory or as a suggestion or idea". For those who have a low reading comprehension level let me break that down into plain English so maybe you can understand it better. That means it is Fake, False, Made Up, Doesn't Really Exist, Pretend, Hypothetical, Theoretical, Imaginary, Unreal, Illusional.
So, if we have an event that is made up and doesn't exist, how is that an warning that the DoD is going to detonate an EMP?
There are also many of these idiotic fear-mongers that say that every time FEMA does a "drill" it goes live. Ok, let's take a look at that statement.
First off, FEMA is not conducting this drill, it is between MARS and ARRL radio operators only, no one else is involved in it. It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with FEMA.
Secondly, since this drill has been conducted every 3 months over the past 4 years, that is a total of 16 times the drill has been conducted. According to their theory that the drills always become actual events, that means we should have seen 16 times when the electricity, phones, cell phones, and internet was interrupted for multiple days nationwide over the past four years.
Well, I searched and searched and I was unable to correlate a single event of national outage to one of these exercises. In fact I was unable to even find a single national outage that has happened ever in recorded history. Of course, in their defense I must admit that I only searched for things that have happened in this reality, I did not check for alternate realities. Perhaps in an alternate reality it has happened before.
So, we have concluded that apparently the people that believe that the electricity and communications will be disrupted tomorrow y this communication interoperability drill do not know how to read, and that they are apparently living in some form of alternate reality.
The US Army issued the following update because of the hysteria that is being spread around:
Nov. 1, 2017 Update from the U.S. Army's Network Enterprise Technology Command NETCOM: The exercise will simulate a power-outage scenario; it will not impact any public or private communications. There will be no power outages of communications systems. This exercise is designed to improve readiness, build cooperation and public awareness, and better prepare to defend the nation.
The electricity, phones, cell phones, and internet will NOT be turned off tomorrow. Hopefully these people will loosen their tinfoil hats long enough to allow the blood flow to return to their brains now so that they can return to concentrating on the real threats that are out there and stop concentrating on imaginary ones.
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In upcoming episodes we will also take a look at "Water Purification & Sanitization" as well as "Vacuum Sealed vs. Mylar Bagged Food Storage". We will also take a look at the shelf-life of "Home Canned Foods" and the viability of using them in our emergency supplies. We will also have future episodes on Emergency Communications or EmComms.
Also we will have an episode on the need for a Wilderness First Aid training even if you live in a city. We will also take a look at the need for "Sanitation After A Disaster".
