Every year, AmRRON — the American Redoubt Radio Operators Network — runs T-REX, a nationwide, scenario-based exercise that simulates a full grid-down event using unconventional communications like ham radio. This year was their 13th annual T-REX, and once again the exercise demonstrated why actually testing our equipment, plans, and skills is so important.
For our group, T-REX 2026 was both a successful exercise and another opportunity to identify where we can improve. One of the biggest takeaways was simple:
Practice matters.
Quick takeaways from this year’s exercise:
- Testing your full communications setup ahead of time matters more than owning good gear
- Redundancy across HF, VHF, repeaters, and mesh networks kept information moving when one layer struggled
- Communications is a skill, not just equipment — listening, recording, and relaying accurately matter as much as transmitting
- Getting more members involved — not just the radio operators — is our biggest opportunity before T-REX 2027
It is easy to build a communications plan on paper. It is another thing entirely to shut down normal infrastructure, transition to backup power, turn on the radios, and see whether everything actually works.
That is where exercises such as T-REX become valuable. Success isn’t necessarily measured by everything working perfectly. Sometimes the most valuable part of an exercise is discovering what doesn’t work — and then doing something about it.
Learning From One Year to the Next
One of our participants described this year’s exercise as a major improvement over the previous year.
During last year’s T-REX, the goal was relatively simple: get off-grid and see what worked. Going without commercial power turned out to be the easy part. The communications equipment presented the real challenge.
An older laptop running the FLdigi suite didn’t perform as reliably as hoped, and the available battery system wasn’t large enough to comfortably support the radio and computer throughout the exercise.
Rather than viewing those problems as failures, they became a list of things to improve.
For T-REX 2026, the station returned with a newer dedicated laptop, a tested FLdigi installation, an NVIS antenna for HF communications, and a much larger battery system. More importantly, the equipment was tested several times before the exercise rather than being assembled and tested for the first time when T-REX began.
The difference was significant.
The station successfully received exercise injects and AIB information, retransmitted missing blocks, and made contacts with several other operators.
One member’s upgraded power system also exceeded expectations. A Jackery 3000 powered the radio and computer while simultaneously supporting a refrigerator and freezer for the entire weekend. Two 200-watt solar panels were available for recharging, but the stored capacity was sufficient that they weren’t even needed.
That experience reinforced one of the best lessons from T-REX:
Every exercise should build upon the previous one.
You don’t have to start with the perfect station. Start with what you have. Find the weaknesses. Fix what you can. Then test it again.
Taking the Grid-Down Concept Further
Another participant approached T-REX from more of a group-preparedness perspective.
Last year’s exercise was primarily a listening exercise. As relatively new radio operators, the objective wasn’t to jump into every communications mode possible. It was to learn, observe, and test the group’s preparedness plan.
When the exercise began, normal electrical power was shut off. Equipment operated from batteries and portable solar systems. Refrigerators and freezers were operated strategically and kept closed as much as possible to conserve energy.
The group also implemented its own communications PACE plan (Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency) and scheduled check-ins specifically for the event.
Equipment that wasn’t actively being used was protected, and after the evening check-in, a communications station was established for continued monitoring. Multiple HF and local radios were used, while lightweight portable radios provided additional capability away from the primary communications station.
This year, we expanded that concept.
MeshCore/Meshtastic nodes and a repeater were incorporated into the communications plan. After the initial check-in, team members deployed nodes at predetermined locations to improve local coverage.
Although the mesh system was primarily useful within the local area, it provided another communications layer and allowed more continuous check-ins without unnecessarily relying on VHF.
That was an important lesson for us:
Emergency communications don’t need to depend on one radio, one frequency, or one technology.
HF may provide regional or national information. VHF/UHF can support communications within the local area. Repeaters can extend that coverage. Mesh networks can provide another method for moving short messages and maintaining contact among nearby participants.
Each layer has strengths and weaknesses. The goal isn’t necessarily to determine which system is “best.” The goal is learning how they can complement one another so that when one option is unavailable, another can continue moving information.
Our Experiences Were Not Unique
Looking through the broader T-REX 2026 participant feedback, many operators came away with remarkably similar lessons.
- Operated completely off-grid
- Experimented with solar and battery systems
- Received FLdigi traffic
- Used JS8Call
- Experimented with MeshCore and Meshtastic
- Relayed messages and monitored multiple communications modes
- Made contacts across significant distances
Just as importantly, people discovered problems.
- Computers consumed more power than expected
- Solar components failed
- Software crashed
- Antennas didn’t perform as hoped
- Propagation changed
- Messages arrived incomplete
- Operators struggled with unfamiliar software or procedures
That is exactly why exercises like T-REX are valuable. Finding out that a charging cable doesn’t work during an exercise is inconvenient. Finding that out during an actual communications emergency could be much more serious.
One theme appeared repeatedly in participant feedback:
Test your equipment before the exercise.
That means more than turning on the radio and confirming that it transmits.
Run the radio, computer, interface, batteries, antennas, cables, software, and charging equipment together. Test the complete system under realistic operating conditions and for realistic periods of time.
Know how much power the complete station actually consumes — not just what the specifications say it should consume.
Test the little things, too. A station with a radio, antenna, computer, and several thousand watt-hours of battery capacity can still be taken out of service by something as simple as a bad cable, blown fuse, missing adapter, software configuration problem, or connector that was never tested.
And whenever possible, have a backup.
Communications Are More Than Equipment
Another important lesson from T-REX was that successful emergency communications aren’t simply about owning radios.
Operators need to understand when to listen, when to transmit, how to pass traffic efficiently, how to request missing information, and how to organize what they receive. That’s a big part of what our own Communications specialty is built around — it’s a skill set, not just a piece of gear.
Several participants emphasized the importance of listening, especially for people participating in T-REX for the first time.
That is excellent advice.
A first exercise doesn’t need to involve transmitting on every mode or trying to participate in every scheduled activity. Simply monitoring communications, following the SOI (Signal Operating Instructions), tracking traffic, and learning how information moves through the network can provide an enormous amount of experience.
There is also value in keeping good records. During a prolonged event, receiving information isn’t enough. Someone has to determine what has been received, what is missing, what needs to be relayed, and what information is actually important.
T-REX demonstrated how quickly that can become challenging when multiple radios, digital modes, messages, duplicates, changing band conditions, and power considerations are all competing for attention.
That introduces another skill that is easy to overlook: turning communications into usable information.
A radio operator may successfully receive dozens of messages, but someone still needs to organize those reports into an operational picture that others can understand and act upon.
Where We Can Improve
No exercise is perfect, and it shouldn’t be.
The broader after-action feedback identified opportunities to improve traffic handling, reduce unnecessary or duplicate transmissions, improve coordination of retransmissions and missing blocks, better organize message tracking, and continue developing local communications networks.
For our own group, we also see opportunities to better integrate our different communications layers.
HF, local radio, repeaters, MeshCore/Meshtastic, and other off-grid tools shouldn’t necessarily operate as isolated systems. The next step is continuing to explore how information received through one system can be efficiently moved to the people who need it through another.
For example, important information received over HF may need to be summarized and distributed locally through VHF, a repeater, or a mesh network. Likewise, information originating from a local field team may need to move through several communications layers before eventually reaching a station capable of passing it outside the area.
There is also an important human component.
- Who monitors which system?
- Who records incoming information?
- Who determines what needs to be forwarded?
- Who maintains the operational picture?
- What happens if a primary operator or station goes down?
- Can someone else step into that role?
Those are questions that equipment alone cannot answer. They require organization, training, redundancy, and practice.
The Biggest Takeaway: Participate
Perhaps the best advice from this year’s experience is also the simplest:
Participate.
One challenge many preparedness groups face is getting more members involved in communications exercises.
The people who are already interested in communications are usually willing to spend a weekend sitting in front of radios, experimenting with digital modes, troubleshooting antennas, and monitoring traffic.
Getting members whose primary interests or specialties are medical, logistics, security, transportation, leadership, or other areas involved can be more challenging.
That is something we want to work on.
Communications shouldn’t exist in a vacuum. In a real emergency, the purpose of a communications network isn’t simply to prove that two radios can talk to each other. The purpose is to move information that allows other people to make decisions and accomplish a mission.
Finding creative ways to involve members outside the communications team should therefore be a focus for future exercises.
Someone doesn’t need to understand FLdigi or know how to configure an HF radio to participate. They can receive a message from a communications operator, make a decision based upon that information, complete an assigned task, and report the results back through the network.
That makes communications relevant to everyone.
And for those who are interested in learning radio, remember that you don’t need the perfect station. You don’t need every digital mode mastered. You don’t need an enormous battery bank or a field full of solar panels.
Start where you are.
Listen. Learn. Test your equipment. Write down what doesn’t work. Fix a few things before the next exercise and try again.
One of our participants summed up that experience particularly well: each year and each attempt builds on the one before it.
That was certainly true for us. Last year’s weaknesses became this year’s improvements. This year’s successes gave us confidence in several parts of our communications plan, while this year’s problems and observations have already given us new things to work on.
That is what a good training exercise should accomplish.
Looking Ahead: Combining T-REX With a Field Exercise
One idea we are already considering for future T-REX events is combining the communications exercise with a local field training exercise, or FTX.
Instead of having every participant primarily focused on the radios, we could create local missions that depend upon information moving through the communications network.
A central communications node could receive information from T-REX while simultaneously supporting several teams operating in the field. At predetermined or unscheduled points during the exercise, those teams could receive additional missions.
This would give our communications operators something more challenging than simply making contact: they would have to receive, record, prioritize, and accurately relay information to people who actually need to use it.
At the same time, field participants would experience why dependable communications matter.
Example Mission: Missing Member
Imagine that several hours into the exercise, the primary communications node receives a priority message:
A member of the group who was expected at a predetermined location has failed to arrive. The last known location is several miles away, and because normal cellular and internet services are unavailable as part of the exercise, a field team is assigned to locate the missing member.
The team deploys with only the information immediately available.
Shortly after departure, additional information reaches the communications node. The missing person has a simulated medical condition and requires a specific medication at a scheduled interval. The field team needs that information before making contact.
Now the exercise becomes more than simply passing radio traffic.
The communications station must determine how to reach the team using whatever communications pathway is available. Perhaps the primary VHF path doesn’t work from their location. The message may need to move through a repeater, another member, or a mesh node.
Most importantly, the information must arrive accurately. For example, the exercise controller could provide a simulated medication order such as:
SIMULATION ONLY: Medication Alpha — 25 mg tablet. Member normally takes TWO tablets by mouth at 1800 hours. Do not confuse with Medication Alpha 50 mg extended-release tablets contained in the secondary medical kit.
The point would not be practicing medicine. The point would be practicing precision in communications.
Did the field team receive “25 mg” or “50 mg”? Did they understand that two 25 mg tablets were required? Did they accurately record the time? Did they read the message back? Did the communications operator recognize that this was information important enough to require confirmation rather than assuming it had been understood?
The team could then locate the missing member and transmit a structured report:
Member located. Conscious and ambulatory. No immediate injuries identified. Coordinates confirmed. Medical information received and verified. Preparing for movement to rally point.
The scenario could continue from there. A road used for the planned return could be declared impassable, requiring the team to request an alternate route. A second team might need to deliver equipment. The communications station might receive new intelligence affecting the team’s route. A mesh node could unexpectedly go offline, forcing the group to transition to another portion of its PACE plan.
None of those challenges needs to be overly complicated. The objective is to create a reason for information to move.
The field team needs communications to accomplish its mission. The communications team needs accurate reports from the field to maintain the operational picture. Leadership needs information from both groups to make decisions.
Suddenly the radio isn’t the exercise.
The radio is supporting the exercise.
That is where we would like to take this in the future.
Building Toward T-REX 2027
T-REX 2026 wasn’t about proving that we had everything figured out.
It was about putting our plans and equipment to the test, learning what actually works when normal infrastructure is removed, identifying what we can do better next time, and gaining experience that can’t be obtained simply by reading a manual or buying another piece of equipment.
We learned that preparation matters. We learned that redundancy matters. We learned that communications systems work best when different technologies complement one another.
And perhaps most importantly, we were reminded that equipment is only part of preparedness. People, procedures, teamwork, and the ability to turn information into action matter just as much.
Next year, we hope to take what we learned and expand the exercise beyond the radio room — bringing more local participants into the event and creating field missions that put the communications network to work.
Most importantly, we had fun doing it.
We came away from T-REX 2026 with more confidence in the systems that worked, a new list of things to improve, and plenty of ideas for what we want to try next. Exercises like this are exactly why we value staying connected with outside networks like AmRRON in the first place — testing ourselves against a bigger, nationwide exercise pushes us further than we’d get training alone.
We’re already looking forward to T-REX 2027.
