Philip­pine ama­teur radio oper­a­tors con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor 7.095 MHz on HF and 144.740 on VHF as typhoon Ruby (inter­na­tion­al name Hagupit) per­sists in its slow move­ment across the Visayas. 
A sol­id mix of oper­a­tors vol­un­teer to pro­vide essen­tial traf­fic as the storm pro­gress­es through Philip­pine territory.
The slow typhoon move­ment has enabled the HERO — Ham Emer­gency Radio Oper­a­tions — vol­un­teers to con­sol­i­date its com­mu­ni­ca­tions assets and net­work in the two (2) days that it has been oper­at­ing. Advi­sories were also sent to neigh­bour­ing asso­ci­a­tions — ORARI in Indone­sia, and JARL in Japan — request­ing their oper­a­tors to steer clear of the 40 meter fre­quen­cies being uti­lized by PARA.
At around 8:30 pm. Mani­la time, Decem­ber 6, 2014, HERO vol­un­teer and RADNET‑5 Pres­i­dent Ronald Madera, DW5NLH from Tacloban report­ed that a school build­ing being used as evac­u­a­tion cen­tre in Oras West Ele­men­tary School, Oras, East­ern Samar has col­lapsed, result­ing in injuries to evacuees.
Togeth­er with the infor­ma­tion was the request for a res­cue team and for a news team to cov­er the inci­dent as news. Since it was the height of the typhoon there was no vol­un­teer in the provin­cial cap­i­tal of Borongan. 
The request was rout­ed through Cap­tain Rick Catun­gal DV6RCC, an Army Cap­tain man­ag­ing dis­as­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tions in Capiz, and through the Philip­pine Nation­al Police head­quar­ters in Camp Crame, Que­zon City. Gil Lap­pay, 4F2KWT, helped in pro­vid­ing con­tacts of DZMM but the net con­trol sta­tions could not get through, hence the need to pass on the request from one sta­tion to the oth­er until it was received by the intend­ed recipients.
Around 150 sta­tions checked into the emer­gency nets ear­li­er, hence the net con­trols, Romy Isidro DU1SMQ (PARA Dis­trict 1 Man­ag­er), Jojo Vicen­cio, DU1VHY (PARA Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al and NTS Chair­man) and Thel­ma Pas­cua (PARA Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer),  were con­fi­dent that emer­gency traf­fic will be ade­quate­ly serviced. 

Aside from the nets of 7am and 7pm, roll call nets at 2PM were ear­li­er done to deter­mine capa­bil­i­ties of receiv­ing mes­sages with poor prop­a­ga­tion condition.
Upon request of the Nation­al Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mis­sion (NTC), a capa­ble sta­tion was estab­lished in NTC Cen­tral Office iden­ti­fied as DX1NTC. The task of man­ning the sta­tion is del­e­gat­ed to PARA affil­i­ate club ACER (DX1ER).

The ini­tial set of oper­a­tors includes Raul, DU1VFS, Mike, DW1VJD and a good CW oper­a­tor, Con­rad, DU1TDG. Pro­vid­ing the oper­a­tors with pro­vi­sions and logis­tics are Nards, DU1LC, Joe, DU1IL and oth­er ACER members.
The region­al offices of NTC have like­wise set-up their sta­tions. NTC sta­tion from Region 3 was assist­ed by DU3 hams Alex DU3AL, Bong DU3BS, Ka Diego DU3DYG; Region 6 assist­ed by the Panay Ama­teur Radio Club and PARA Dis­trict 6 Man­ag­er Ned DU6NE with the con­stant mon­i­tor­ing of the abled sta­tion of Bob­by DU6BG. 

It was like a sur­veil­lance sce­nario. As the typhoon was mov­ing, hams are also report­ing into the emer­gency net the weath­er and oth­er developments. 

A Catar­man sta­tion was report­ing the onslaught as Ruby was cross­ing that north­ern part of Samar island. Oth­er sta­tions would also report con­di­tions — Nand­ing DW5OCF would report con­di­tions in Ormoc City, South­ern Leyte; Jay DV7JAY, Sid­ney DW7EEE and DW7EQN would report the con­di­tions in Cebu; Art DV7DRG; Edmund on the OpCen in Dumaguete City with the rest of NORAD 7 mem­bers; embed­ded mem­bers in DSWD OpCen Edmund DV7DTE and Ivan DV7DRP would report wind con­di­tions in Valle­hermoso, Negros Ori­en­tal — all the way to the Bicol area with DX4CN embed­ded in Daet Camarines Norte MDRRMC report­ing efforts with Lito DU4DF in Naga City.
Oth­er licensed hams are embed­ded in the dif­fer­ent dis­as­ter and risk reduc­tion oper­a­tions cen­ters in the dif­fer­ent local gov­ern­ment units.
Iver DV6ILA and Arnel DV6WAV are man­ning the Rox­as City oper­a­tions cen­tre.  ACCESS‑5 is attached with the Office of Civ­il Defence, Leyte Province. Vie DU5VIE of RADNET‑5 is man­ning the Tacloban City CDRRMC oper­a­tions centre..
Ton DW1QGG is embed­ded as oper­a­tor with the Marinduque author­i­ties. Dulce DU4UW is attached to the Sor­so­gon dis­as­ter communications.
As of late after­noon, Ditoy DW1OZR is report­ing from Pina­malayan, Ori­en­tal Min­doro on the evac­u­a­tion efforts in dif­fer­ent barangays, with no com­mer­cial pow­er, as a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure as typhoon Ruby will make land­fall in Min­doro in a few hours, the same with Father Jobo of Baco, Ori­en­tal Mindoro.
In all, typhoon Ruby is expect­ed to make sev­er­al land­falls before it even­tu­al­ly exits the Philip­pine Area of Respon­si­bil­i­ty (PAR).
ACCESS‑5 mem­bers Nel­son, DW5MGB and Edgar DV5EST will be going to Boron­gan, East­ern Samar at 5:30 pm today for aug­men­ta­tion and to set up HF com­mu­ni­ca­tions on 7.095 MHz and 2‑meter VHF on 145.650 MHZ. 
Mario 4F5MM and Jer­ick 4F5JMS on the oth­er hand will be going to Catar­man, North­ern Samar as part of the assess­ment team from the Office of Civ­il Defence.
Nathan DU5AOK was able to talk to May­or Mabal­con of Paranas, Samar ear­li­er in the day and the may­or said that the pres­ence of many vol­un­teers is very encour­ag­ing even though strong winds and heavy rain are buf­fet­ing their small town. He said, hope­ful­ly there will be zero casualties.
With typhoon Ruby esti­mat­ed to exit Philip­pines by Wednes­day, the wish for zero casu­al­ties is a tall order. In the mean­time, HERO will con­tin­ue to serve as long as it is needed.
At 7pm, to everybody’s relief, Lester DV5PO has final­ly resur­faced on the work­ing fre­quen­cy, report­ing about Boron­gan, East­ern Samar which sur­pris­ing­ly did not have storm surge.
Tru­ly, hams per­sist. Mem­bers of the Philip­pine Ama­teur Radio Asso­ci­a­tion are ever so ready any time the need aris­es for emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions on 7.095MHz and 144.740MHz.

— THELMA C. PASCUA, DU1IVT with reports from the HERO network.