New England HF/VHF Emcomm Interop Group



Update February 12, 2026 The Request for Information Strip Reader and Response Creator has been upgraded to Rev. 1.5. This version will be pushed in the next Winlink forms update (date TBD) but is available for download on the Documents and Downloads page. Introduction and Purpose The purpose of this site is to provide information on procedures and tools by which New England amateur radio emergency communications operators in groups such as ARES and RACES can interact with SHARES operators in the region. Operators in the Amateur Radio Service have long proven to be of considerable value when normal communications services are compromised. The amateur community is well dispersed and can provide local information with regard to road closures, service outages (power, water, etc.) and weather. This page will provide an overview of the program and its elements. Related pages have the details. What is SHARES? The SHAred RESources (SHARES) High Frequency (HF) Radio program provides an additional means for users with a national security and emergency preparedness mission to communicate when landline and cellular communications are unavailable. SHARES members use existing HF radio resources to coordinate and transmit messages needed to perform critical functions, including those areas related to leadership, safety, maintenance of law and order, finance, and public health. More than 3,000 HF radio stations-representing about 600 federal, state, and industry organizations located in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and several locations overseas-are resource contributors to the SHARES HF Radio Program. The membership also includes Auxiliary members who perform specific functions in support of the organization. These include, for example, members of the Military Auxiliary Radio Service (MARS). Approximately 200 HF radio channels are available for use by SHARES members. Many of the modes and tools used in SHARES will be familiar to Amateur Radio Operators. Familiar examples include Winlink, JS8Call, VARA Chat and fldigi/flamp (NBEMS) and cw. Less familiar would be Automatic Link Establishment (ALE).Winlink radio-email has the advantage of interoperability between the SHARES and Amateur services. The radio channels are assigned by NTIA and all modes (i.e. voice, cw and data) are permitted on any of the channels. Encryption is permitted. "Favorite" data modes include Pactor, VARA and several fldigi modes including MT63 and THOR 22. Important Note: This site does not contain any proprietary information about the SHARES program. The SHARES Region 1 Interoperability Group Established in early 2025, the SHARES Region 1 Interoperability Group is a collaborative network of operators in New England. The overriding purpose is to have a secure HF communications network for SHARES members in the region. We operate a linked HF network using the VARA HF mode with encryption on several dedicated frequencies. There are 3 geographically dispersed hubs that are operated by members of the SHARES Auxiliary. The hubs have multi-day emergency backup power and redundant equipment sets. Since the group is made up of various entities, the BBS environment represents one level of interoperability where everyone is on the same platform using common RF communications tools. What is needed, in addition, is interoperability with the Amateur Radio Community. In the region there are many ARES, RACES and SKYWARN groups whose members are generally sponsored by a county EMA. As noted, these Amateur operators represent a valuable source of "ground truth" information that can be collected, organized and made available throughout New England. There are two parts to this. The first is the interface to the Amateur Community. The second includes the various elements used in the communications. Interfaces to the Amateur Community Winlink: Many Amateurs use the Winlink system. SHARES uses Winlink but has a different service code. Messages using the "normal" radio-email service through the CMS can interoperate with SHARES operators. This will not work with radio-only or peer to peer. Winlink radio-email will not work directly with the SHARES BBS. 2 Hats: While a radio operator's license (Amateur or GROL) is not required to operate as part of SHARES, the vast majority of members have Ham licenses. This provides an important means of interfacing. An Interop Group member can change hats and work within the Ham community. For example, if a request is made for specific information in a state, a SHARES member can then work in their community as a Ham. The operator will operate with his or her SHARES call sign within the SHARES system but reach out to key members of the Amateur community using their Ham call sign. We have begun working with ARES/RACES leadership in New England to establish these interfaces to the broader group of community/public service focused Amateurs. Methods and Tools We don't want communications to be subject to infrastructure failures either locally or in the unlikely (but possible) event of wide scale outages. Therefore, while we won't exclude the use of Winlink, we will focus on radio only communications tools. While this could include HF SSB and VHF voice, data modes would be far preferable. Common tools used in both services would include NBEMS (fldigi with flmsg), Winlink peer to peer, packet, simplex & repeater VHF and chat programs capable of file transfers (VARA Chat or VarAC). For consistency in data reporting, we will use a small handful of flmsg custom forms. Three have been designed thus far. One is an ICS-213. The second is a simple blank form. The third is a modified ICS-213 that will be used for formal Requests for Information (RIs) in "strip" format. There are a number of reasons for using the flmsg custom forms. First, unlike Winlink forms, they can be used with any transport medium including NBEMS, Winlink radio-email or P2P, VARA Chat/VarAC, Digital Traffic Network, regular email, etc. All that is required is the flmsg program which is free, cross platform and requires no registration. It is especially easy to use with custom forms in the "Agency" mode. Gathered information can be obtained as free text. For Winlink Express users, there are a number of forms with specific categories (situation reports, weather reports, etc.). Since we desire broad compatibility, we will limit the use of the Winlink forms. All of the above is explained in detail in the various pages on this site.