The Glob­al Ama­teur Radio Emer­gency Com­mu­ni­ca­tion (GAREC) con­fer­ence held in Huntsville Alaba­ma USA shared many infor­ma­tive pre­sen­ta­tions, videos and dis­cus­sions on recent expe­ri­ences plus some media interest. 

Organ­is­er Greg Sar­ratt W4OZK said the local tele­vi­sion sta­tion inter­viewed IARU Region 1 Coor­di­na­tor Greg Mossop G0DUB, ARRL Reg­u­la­to­ry Infor­ma­tion Man­ag­er Dan Hen­der­son N1ND, and him­self, for the evening news program. 

GAREC-2014 was host­ed by ARRL Alaba­ma Sec­tion and the Huntsville Ham­fest Asso­ci­a­tion. It was attend­ed by del­e­gates from all three IARU regions. 

Greg W4OZK said that besides rou­tine items such as IARU region­al reports and a desk­top exer­cise, pre­sen­ta­tions were received on many inter­est­ing topics. 

These includ­ed Emer­gency Com­mu­ni­ca­tions as an ele­ment of pro­mot­ing Ama­teur Radio, the Sal­va­tion Army’s SATERN pro­gram dig­i­tal modes and remote con­trol oper­a­tion, the US Defence Depart­ment use of the Mil­i­tary Affil­i­ate Radio Ser­vice (MARS) for Human­i­tar­i­an Assis­tance and Dis­as­ter Relief, and a com­bined Emer­gency Ser­vices Dis­patch Cen­tre pro­vid­ing inter­op­er­a­ble communications. 

Dur­ing the con­fer­ence and in open ses­sions a num­ber of themes began to emerge and were discussed. 

These includ­ed the impor­tance of mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tions with served agen­cies to ensure that their com­mu­ni­ca­tions needs are met, and to focus atten­tion on Ama­teur Radio as a trust­ed part­ner in emer­gency response in all phas­es of the com­mu­ni­ca­tions life cycle. 

The use of social media was also dis­cussed as a medi­um to send near real-time infor­ma­tion on an event which does not com­pro­mise our rela­tion­ships with the served agencies. 

The pro­mo­tion of GAREC itself includ­ing video on social media could broad­en the knowl­edge of this impor­tant annu­al event. 

There were reports on Brazil­ian floods, the Super Typhoon Haiyan in the Philip­pines, the role of radio ama­teurs in the Thai­land flood­ing and restora­tion of HS0AC. 

The del­e­gates reaf­firmed that every coun­try had dif­fer­ent dis­as­ter response needs reflect­ing their unique sit­u­a­tions and oper­a­tional standards. 

The IARU HF Emer­gency Mes­sage Pro­ce­dures, which has ele­ments such as net oper­a­tion pro­ce­dures, stan­dard mes­sag­ing pro­to­cols and acti­va­tion pro­to­cols, should con­tin­ue to be devel­oped to estab­lish base­line stan­dards between coun­tries and regions. 

These rec­om­mend­ed best prac­tices are not intend­ed to replace exist­ing Stan­dard Oper­at­ing Pro­ce­dures but to enhance them. 

The con­fer­ence recog­nised that more need­ed to be done to reach out to its served agen­cies to pro­mote the emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tion role of Ama­teur Radio. 

The role of Ama­teur Radio in emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions is con­stant­ly chang­ing. It must con­tin­ue to adapt to the needs of its part­ners includ­ing embrac­ing emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies and new challenges. 

All GAREC par­tic­i­pants past and present are invit­ed to sub­mit their ideas or exam­ples of local best prac­tice to the next con­fer­ence in 2015. 

GAREC par­tic­i­pants recog­nise that to recruit the next gen­er­a­tion of emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tors, strong empha­sis needs to be paid to recruit­ing new licensees to the hob­by with attrac­tive pro­gram train­ing and sup­port. This includes the devel­op­ment of youth and men­tor­ing programs. 

Greg W4OZK said the del­e­gates record­ed their thanks and appre­ci­a­tion for the gen­er­ous hos­pi­tal­i­ty of ARRL Alaba­ma Sec­tion and the Huntsville Ham­fest Asso­ci­a­tion, for a suc­cess­ful con­fer­ence on August 14–15.

The next and 10th GAREC will be in Tam­pere, Fin­land in June 2015. All groups and organ­i­sa­tions involved in emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions are invit­ed to attend to share their knowl­edge and learn from others. 

The final pro­gram is at http://www.w4ozk.com/GAREC14_Official%20Program.htm

All pre­sen­ta­tions will soon appear on the web­site http://www.w4ozk.com/GAREC14.htm

 

— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee.