Saturday, September 25, hams from the area assisted the town of Conway in a drill that was the first of its kind in the state. Approximately 8 teams of public employees, such as fire, police, and EMT, drove on pre-planned routes through the town to distribute simulated medication. In a real emergency, such as anthrax dispersal, such medication would have to be distributed to everyone very quickly to protect agains the deadly disease.

Amateur radio operators followed the distribution vehicles in their own cars to provide back-up communications. In a town with as many hills as Conway, public service vehicles sometimes really couldn't communicate directly with the Emergency Operations Center, and hams provided the back-up. We used the KB1NTK repeater in Deefield.

Those who participated as radio operators and who are also members of the Medical Reserve Corps and Citizens Emergency Response Teams got the bonus of seeing how such a drill is done, and how it could be adapted in other towns.

On October 15 a similar drill was done in the town of Sunderland. Again the KB1NTK was used as the primary repeater, but a secondary repeater was designated - the 442.200 KD1XP machine in Amherst. While Sunderland is less hilly than Conway, there were some sections of town in the shadow of Mt. Sugarloaf, so it took some effort to keep communications open. The drill ended in a quickly moving thunderstorm that made some of the operators nervous about their safety.

One lesson learned at both drills was the need for newer hams to become more familiar with the process of programing their equipment for repeaters they don't normally use, and to be ready to switch to back-up channels when problems arise using the main designated repeater.