Anything you do in Amateur Radio that advances your knowledge or skill is potentially helpful when it comes to emergency communications preparedness. There are a couple of planned events coming up in the beginning of 2025.
While you can operate "deployed" any time, Winter Field Day on January 25th and 26th offers an opportunity to participate in a world-wide event similar to the ARRL Field Day in June.
For participants in southern climates, the weather is probably more comfortable than summer Field Day. For us in NNY it is just the opposite. However, it may be a better emergency communications exercise than in June, because a winter ice storm that knocks out power and communications over a wide area is more likely than a severe warm-weather storm.
The original intent and highest point category of WFD is operating outside, but you can operate from home, or deployed to any comfy location with the only outside activity being setup of temporary antennas, or you could operate from the EOC or other fixed location.
We would really like all NNY ARES members to participate in Winter Field Day individually or as groups. We don't expect you to go camping in the snow, but some simulation of emergency conditions would be great. Run on emergency power, use a field-expedient backup antenna, etc. Rocco is offering an incentive for stations that make at least 50 contacts during WFD.
We would really like ARES members to develop 60 Meter capability.
25 years ago the Amateur Radio emergency communications community petitioned for frequencies in between 80 and 40 meters, because sometimes 3.5 MHz is below optimum and 7 MHz is above optimum for beyond line of sight NVIS use. The NTIA came up with 5 "channels" in the 5 MHz range that could be opened for Amateur Radio use on a secondary basis. There is nothing technically different about operating on 60 meters, however there are specific rules for operating on these channels. I'll cover this in more detail at a later date. The official ARRL Simulated Emergency Test occurs in October, but we are planning a spring SET for April, concentrating on 60 meter operation. There will be a series of Zoom informational sessions on 60 meters prior to the April event.