Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Ham Radio Hurricane Emergency Operations

With hurricane season underway, all amateur radio operators be aware of the major emergency net frequencies. These nets can be activated on short notice, and if in session, should be avoided during contests, other nets, and regular operations. From the July 15th edition of the ARRL's ARES E-Letter, here are links to the primary HF emcomm Web pages:

Major HF Nets:

WX4NHC at the National Hurricane Center http://www.wx4nhc.org/
Hurricane Watch Net http://www.hwn.org/
SKYWARN http://www.weather.gov/skywarn/
Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Net (SATERN) http://satern.org/
The Waterway Net http://www.waterwayradio.net/
VoIP SKYWARN/Hurricane Net. (The latter is an Internet-based operation, but of interest.) http://www.voipwx.net/

Major National-Level Served Agencies:

National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster http://www.nvoad.org/
Red Cross http://www.redcross.org/
National Weather Service http://www.nws.noaa.gov/
Citizen Corps http://www.citizencorps.gov/
Salvation Army http://www.salvationarmy.org/
REACT http://www.reactintl.org/

More on all this as the hurricane season proceeds.