brief summary of garec-07
the third global amateur radio emergency communications conference (garec-07) was in huntsville, alabama, august 16-17.
this is a brief summary of that event because it contains interesting information including parallels of the work that is already underway in iaru region 3.
a full report appears on the arrl website at
http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2007/08/24/102/?nc=1while garec is not a decision-making body, its ideas and proposals are submitted to the iaru.
the conference recommended the introduction the call sign suffix "/d." this suffix would be used by those in the amateur radio service who handle traffic related to emergency and disaster situations.
another recommendation included the extension of "emcomm party on-the-air." these are emergency communications exercises already in place in iaru region 1.
seppo sisatto, oh1vr, region 1 representative, proposed holding two annual international drills, lasting only 4 hours, beginning november 11.
this is in recognition that major disasters can and do cross international borders, and hams need to practice for such times. (similar to the proposed simulated emergency tests in iaru r3)
garec asked that amateur radio contest organisers considering including in their rules that contest participants avoid frequencies in the immediate vicinity of the centre of activity frequencies (as proposed at garec-05) - 14.300, 18.160 and 21.360 mhz. these frequencies have been adopted by iaru r1, noted by iaru r3 and due to go before the iaru r2 regional conference soon.
the conference also supported the iaru's administrative council decision made its recent meeting in boston to collect information from all member societies about the progress of including in domestic national regulations of the wrc03 revisions to article 25 of the itu radio regulations.
the part of article 25 concerning emergency communications says "amateur stations may be used for transmitting international communications on behalf of third parties only in case of emergencies or disaster relief. an administration may determine the applicability of this provision to amateur stations under its jurisdiction" (rr 25.3), and "administrations are encouraged to take the necessary steps to allow amateur stations to prepare for and meet communication needs in support of disaster relief" (rr 25.9a).
- rgds jim linton vk3pc
chairman, iaru region 3 disaster communications committee
