Emergency Communication

Kaua’i Amateur Radio Club Emergency Communication Team.

Aloha and welcome to KARC Emergency Communication (Emcomm) Team webpage. Hurricane, flashfloods and other disasters can strike quickly and without warning. Emergency communication exists when a critical communication system fails and puts the public at risk. When this occurs, the KARC Emcomm Team moves into action with highly trained and experienced Hams to support our served agencies.

Kaua‘i Island Emergency Communication Plan for operating 2 METER SIMPLEX when 2 meter repeaters are not working.

Emcomm volunteers come from a wide variety of backgrounds and with a wide range of skills and experiences. Effective volunteers share a desire to help others, ability to work as a team and take direction from others. There is the need to think and act quickly, under stress and pressure of an emergency. There is the need to be prepared and trained. Some of our members are also cross trained volunteers with the American Red Cross and CERT (Community Emergency Response Team). We recommend taking the Introduction to Amateur Radio Emergency Communications on-line course at ARRL website (http://www.arrl.org/cce/). Registration for this course (EC-001) generally opens on the first Monday of each month at 12:01 AM Eastern Time. Remember that is 6:00 PM Hawaii Time during the summer months and 7:00 PM Hawaii during the winter on the Sunday before the first Monday of the month.

Emergency communication skills are very different from daily ham radio operation. Here are some examples:

Emergency communication involves both amateurs and non-amateurs.
Emergency operations happen in real time. Important activities cannot be delayed.
Emergency communicators are often dealing with several continuous nets simultaneously to pass critical messages within a limited timeframe.
Emergency communicators are often asked to organize and coordinate field operations with little or no warning.
Emergency communicators may need to interact with several key organizations simultaneously.
Emergency stations must be portable and able to be set up and operational anywhere in a very short time.
Emergency communicators need to contact specific stations quickly to pass important messages. Teamwork is important.
Emergency operations have no schedule and might continue for several days.
Amateur Radio emergency communicators have the equipment, skills, and knowledge to increase additional capacity in a very short time.

There are various jobs to aid the served agency. A few are handling interagency communications, monitoring operations or become the eyes and ears for the emergency managers.

Remember, the job is also “communicating.”

Listening is most important; you could miss a critical message.
Communicate one complete subject at a time.
Do not editorialize, criticize or chitchat.
All messages should be in plain language. Do not use 10 codes or similar jargon.
Use ITU phonetics alphabet when spelling words.
Numbers are always pronounced individually.
Give your FCC call sign as you complete exchange and it fulfills FCC requirements.

Links to Emergency Communication Resources

Using Amateur Radio during Disasters and Emergencies in Hawaii

Emergency Communications from ARRL website

Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Course registration

Introduction to ECom

Emergency Communication for Amateur Radio - Basics -

Federal Emergency Management Agency

American Red Cross, Hawaii State Chapter

American Red Cross

Community Emergency Response Teams

Amateur radio net participation guidelines, courtesy Oahu Civil Defense Agency

Radiogram document, for use in Traffic nets