PACE — Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency — is the military communications planning framework that ensures you always have a way to communicate, even when your first choice fails. It is not a frequency plan. It is a systems plan: a pre-decided, ordered sequence of communications methods with defined triggers for moving between them.
This course is designed for families and preparedness group members who need a structured, tested communications plan and do not yet have one. No prior radio experience is assumed.
What You Will Build
By the end of this course you will have a documented, tested four-tier communications plan for your household, family, and group, specific failure triggers for every tier transition, and a monthly test schedule. You will also be able to apply the same framework to evacuation, water, power, and leadership planning.
Part of the FFTP Readiness Triad
COM-01 integrates with two companion frameworks. COMCON (Communications Readiness Condition) tells your family or group when to execute PACE tier transitions based on the broader communications environment. PREP-CON (Preparedness Conditions) sets overall readiness posture — communications disruption is a core trigger at PREP-CON 4, 2, and 1. Your PACE plan is the communications component of your PREP-CON response. Both frameworks are covered in depth in Preparedness Conditions (PREP-CON) → and PLN-05: COMCON.