Often the land and marine resources of HAMNET, the Nation­al Emer­gency Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Divi­sion of the South African Radio League (SARL), is called to pro­vide com­mu­ni­ca­tions and trained people.
The emer­gen­cies have includ­ed adverse weath­er events, search­es for peo­ple, miss­ing air­craft and ships. HAMNET is part of the glob­al response to dis­as­ters hav­ing played a role with long dis­tance HF links for some of major over­seas events.
HAMNET West­ern Cape was recent­ly involved in such res­cue mis­sions. Paul van Spron­sen ZS1V, Ham­net Nation­al Direc­tor, was the West­ern Cape Search and Res­cue Logis­tics Duty Man­age­ment respon­si­ble for resources to recent incidents.
On Sun­day Decem­ber 28, Phil ZS1VCC and Jason ZS1ZW were called to Rock­et Road above Sandy Bay and join a team to pro­vide com­mu­ni­ca­tions sup­port to res­cue three stu­dents. The trio was extract­ed to safe­ty ear­ly the next morning.
Ear­li­er that evening Pierre ZS1HF, and David ZU1D, teamed up with Johan ZS1JVW, who was already in place near the du Toits Kloof tun­nel with com­mu­ni­ca­tions to the spe­cial­ist SkyMed.
A para­medic and a female moun­taineer had been dropped into the Kloof. The medic treat­ed the patient in prepa­ra­tion for a chop­per extrac­tion, which she was suc­cess­ful­ly flow to hospital.
In anoth­er inci­dent, a par­ty of five were on the Sui­cide Gorge adven­ture track in Nuwe­berg nature reserve near Grabouw. HAMNET left that res­cue to the dog squad from K9SAR the West Vir­ginia Search and Res­cue Ama­teur Radio Club.
With reg­u­lar HAMNET net­work ses­sions it prides itself on hav­ing reli­able self-sup­port­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions, includ­ing to some of the most remote cor­ners of South Africa.
It works with local gov­ern­ment and dis­as­ter agen­cies. Teach­ing skills learned by radio ama­teurs to school chil­dren not only gives them aware­ness of dis­as­ters, but can also lead to fur­ther recruitment.
The vari­ety of work done vol­un­tar­i­ly per­formed by radio ama­teurs in times of emer­gency can vary great­ly and not always the direct result of a nat­ur­al disaster.
— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee.