ARLA/CLUSTER: Coordenador de Comunicações de Emergencia da IARU Região 1 divulga actualização às frequências de Resposta à Emergencia nas Caraibas

[João Costa > CT1FBF]

Carribean Emergency Response - update

IARU Region 1 Emergency Communications Co-Ordinator Greg Mossop G0DUB
reports on the situation in the Carribean and the amateur radio
response

Hurricane Irma is currently progressing through the USA state of
Florida and Hurricane Jose is still threatening the Carribean. At the
same time Mexico is still dealing with the after effects of the
Earthquake which affected that country earlier this week and the
remains of Hurricane Katia. To add to the problems, an X8.2 solar
flare is causing a major HF blackout in the Americas which will
potentially affect communications until Monday (UTC).

As Hurricane Irma progresses through Florida there will be more HF
frequencies in use by local ARES groups but these will lie mostly
outside the IARU Region 1 band allocations ( West Central Florida
planning to use 3940, 3950 and 7247 kHz for example ). More
information on this should come from the ARRL .

Updates to frequencies in use are;

Mexico
7060 and 7080 kHz to deal with the Earthquake and Hurricane Katia

St. Maarten
14290 and 7190 kHz ( Voice or PACTOR )

US Wide Area traffic handling
14115, 7115 and if necessary 10115 kHz ( all CW )

Carribean Emergency and Weather Net ( CEWN )
3815, 7188 and possibly 7162 kHz

FNRASEC in France are reaching out to French speaking areas in the
Carribean on 14132kHz.

As Irma moves away from the Carribean islands, Radio Amateurs are
entering the area to help. The Red Cross asked for assistance on Sint
Maarten where communications had been badly affected. Tom Braam PJ2DD
volunteered for this task and left September 8th on one of the first
relief flights to Sint Maarten with a Pactor HF station and 9 VHF/UHF
handheld radios to start providing communications. Frequencies in use
are as above.

Enquiries about persons in the affected areas should be referred to
the various Red Cross websites set up for this purpose. 'Welfare'
messages from outside the area are not expected to be handled for at
least three days, with thousands of displaced people, locating them
for message delivery is difficult.

As always, please listen carefully and avoid causing QRM to
frequencies in use for distress and emergency traffic. The operators
in the affected areas already have a difficult job, please give them
as much room as possible to work.

IARU Region 1 http://iaru-r1.org/