A nation­wide simul­ta­ne­ous earth­quake drill in the Philip­pines held on June 22 saw many agen­cies involved includ­ing ham operators. 

The Philip­pines Ama­teur Radio Soci­ety (PARA) now has reports from Ham Emer­gency Radio Oper­a­tion groups that showed they used their capa­bil­i­ties and skills to pro­vide emer­gency communications. 

PARA spokesman Jojo Vicen­cio DU1VHY reports this is the sec­ond drill of its type and lessons learned last time were put into action. 

Each club set up field sta­tions with VHF, UHF and or HF capa­bil­i­ties. The field sta­tions were on high ground to advan­tage as would be the case in a real emergency. 

Fol­low­ing the HERO pro­to­cols the sta­tions used a grid-square or quad­rant loca­tor, checked des­ig­nat­ed fre­quen­cies every 30 min­utes and issued var­i­ous reports. 

All reports of the drill were col­lat­ed by PARA and sent to the Nation­al Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mis­sion that ran the drill. 

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