From: Jim Lin­ton, VK3PC
Sent: Thurs­day, June 26, 2008 9:16 AM
Sub­ject: Chi­na earth­quake report at GAREC

The emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­vid­ed by Chi­na’s radio ama­teurs in the after­math of the dev­as­tat­ing mag­ni­tude 8 Sichuan earth­quake has now end­ed, although some remain on stand­by for rapid re-acti­va­tion if needed. 

IARU Region 3 Chi­nese Radio Sports Asso­ci­a­tion (CRSA) dis­as­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion liai­son Fan Bin BA1RB reports that sev­er­al hun­dred hams took part to help the dis­as­ter recov­ery and relief efforts. 

This began almost imme­di­ate­ly after the huge ‘quake on the 12th of May and it con­tin­ued through until the 13th of June. 

A num­ber of radio ama­teurs trav­elled into the epi­cen­tre area, a dif­fi­cult task due to earth­quake dam­aged roads, to set up communications. 

In the ear­ly days long dis­tance tele­phone lines were either cut or con­gest­ed and this is where ama­teur radio HF links were used, includ­ing one in the provin­cial city of Cheng­du to give the Red Cross a link to Beijing. 

VHF and UHF repeaters were in heavy use, both those which sur­vived the quake and oth­ers pressed into ser­vice to pro­vide much need­ed local com­mu­ni­ca­tions includ­ing front line res­cue and recov­ery activity. 

Ama­teur radio was used to pro­vide coor­di­nat­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions for cars that were used to fer­ry sup­plies and trans­port the wound­ed imme­di­ate­ly after the ‘quake.

Ama­teur radio oper­a­tors across the coun­try made dona­tions of equip­ment and sup­plies and the CRSA thanks them and all inter­na­tion­al radio soci­eties and indi­vid­u­als for the sup­port given. 

The CRSA has pro­duced a pow­er­point slide pre­sen­ta­tion to give an overview of the role emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­vid­ed dur­ing the dis­as­ter, and what is pro­pos­es for the future. 

The slide show was pre­sent­ed this week at the fourth Glob­al Ama­teur Radio Emer­gency Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Con­fer­ence (GAREC-08) in Friedrichshafen, Ger­many, by the IARU Region 3 Chair­man, Michael Owen VK3KI. 

GAREC organ­is­ers and the con­fer­ence del­e­gates were most pleased to see the CRSA pre­sen­ta­tion and learn more about the role played by ama­teur radio after the Sichuan earthquake. 

— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man, IARU R3 Emer­gency Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee. 

---

From: Jim Lin­ton, VK3PC
Sent: Tues­day, May 27, 2008 8:22 PM
Sub­ject: Sit­u­a­tion report #3 on Chi­na earthquake 

Sit­u­a­tion report #3 on Chi­na earthquake 

As the dis­as­ter recov­ery efforts con­tin­ue fol­low­ing Chi­na’s most pow­er­ful earth­quake, the Infor­ma­tion Office of the State Coun­cil report­ed (on 26 May) that the death toll had reached 65,080.

Gov­ern­ment offi­cials and news media have recog­nised that when com­mu­ni­ca­tions failed after the Sichuan earth­quake on 12 May, it was ama­teur radio oper­a­tors who stepped in to pro­vide vital links. 

In the past two weeks there has been more than five mil­lion peo­ple made home­less. The most in-demand mate­ri­als and sup­plies for the dis­as­ter area are tents and med­i­cines. Dis­ease pre­ven­tion is also at a very crit­i­cal stage. 

Chi­na Cen­tral Tele­vi­sion (CCTV) report­ed on 26 May, ‘When all oth­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion means failed, ama­teur radio oper­a­tors came out! An ama­teur radio emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tion net­work was set­up and one of the com­man­ders, Liu hu called for ama­teur radio oper­a­tors on air to pro­vide ser­vices for dis­as­ter relief. 

‘Thank­ful­ly one main repeater sur­vived dur­ing the earth­quake, this repeater pro­vid­ed 100km cov­er­age to Mianyang. Ama­teur radio oper­a­tors from Cheng­du, Shen­zhen, He’­nan went to the cen­tre of the dis­as­ter area, set up repeaters in Beichuan coun­ty, and pro­vid­ed var­i­ous valu­able first hand infor­ma­tion from the centre.’ 

The IARU radio soci­ety, CRSA said it hoped to report lat­er more detailed infor­ma­tion on the role of ama­teur radio emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions in the big earthquake. 

In the mean­time it advis­es that the main organ­is­er of local ama­teur radio traf­fic, Luo Min­glin BY8AA con­tin­u­ous­ly coor­di­nat­ed VHF/UHF com­mu­ni­ca­tions for a 100 km radius from Cheng­du, the cap­i­tal of south­west Chi­na’s province of Sichuan. 

More repeaters were set up in both Beichuan and Mianyang, among the worst hit areas out­side the epi­cen­tre, to form an effec­tive ama­teur radio com­mu­ni­ca­tion network. 

Zhang Zhen BG8DOU reports that right after the earth­quake, two ham radio oper­a­tors drove to the cen­tre of the earth­quake area and had a repeater set up by the morn­ing of 13 May. 

This repeater enabled the trans­mis­sion of res­cue instruc­tions, sta­tus reports and was a main com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nel for pub­lic use. 

Among the traf­fic the repeater car­ried were com­mu­ni­ca­tions for the May­or of Mianzhu City, who gave orders to those on the front line res­cue and recov­ery activity. 

The CRSA appre­ci­ates the sup­port giv­en by the ama­teur radio com­mu­ni­ty in help­ing to keep clear the emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tion fre­quen­cies of 7050kHz, 7060kHz and 14270kHz dur­ing the crit­i­cal peri­od after the earthquake. 

The CRSA said, ‘Thanks for the coop­er­a­tion and efforts made by all ama­teur radio societies.’ 

Those fre­quen­cies are no longer need­ed for emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions, but should a severe after­shock occur, there will be a call by the CRSA for them to be kept clear again. 

The radio soci­ety also acknowl­edged hav­ing received inquiries and the ‘warm con­cerns’ of ama­teur radio soci­eties worldwide. 

(Fan Bin BA1RB on behalf of CRSA, 
via IARU R3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mit­tee Chair­man Jim Lin­ton VK3PC) 

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From: Steve, G4HPE
Sent: Fri­day, May 23, 2008 7:04 AM
Sub­ject: [raynethf] Chi­na Radio Sports Team depart for earth­quake zone

Good pho­tos attached (1.3 MB) for your interest. 

Regards,
Steve G4HPE 

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From: Steve, G4HPE
Sent: Thurs­day, May 22, 2008 5:08 AM
Sub­ject: [raynethf] Chi­nese report QRM to 40m emercomms

Request from Chi­na Radio Sports Asso­ci­a­tion (trans­lat­ed):

“7.050 MHz fre­quen­cy — because of a strong QRM, emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions tem­po­rary QSY to 7.030 MHz. CRSA head­quar­ters appeals to those caus­ing QRM to show a ratio­nal and restrained, all to lis­ten to the main emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions. At the same time not to take up emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tion fre­quen­cies for unnec­es­sary com­mu­ni­ca­tion, such as greet­ings and asked sig­nal report. Lan­guage of com­mu­ni­ca­tion should be brief.” 

Regards,
Steve G4HPE 

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From: Jim Lin­ton, VK3PC
Sent: Tues­day, May 20, 2008 7:35 PM
Sub­ject: Sit­u­a­tion report on Chi­na earthquake

The involve­ment in the Sichuan earth­quake dis­as­ter of ham radio con­tin­ues with the lat­est report that the Red Cross has enlist­ed the emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills of radio amateurs. 

The IARU radio soci­ety, the Chi­nese Radio Sports Asso­ci­a­tion reports that long dis­tance tele­phone ser­vices were at times con­gest­ed in the Cheng­du area, pre­sum­ably due to a heavy demand and dam­age, and it was asked to set up HF sta­tion in Chengdu. 

Under the call­sign BT8RC it estab­lished a good chan­nel for the Chi­nese Red Cross Foun­da­tion from Bei­jing to Cheng­du. This is pro­vid­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions to enable the relief agency to more effec­tive­ly car­ry out its work. 

Oth­er cities in the earth­quake area had set­up or restored VHF and UHF repeaters and ama­teur radio com­mu­ni­ca­tion teams to assist with communication. 

The Sichuan Radio Sports Asso­ci­a­tion sta­tion BY8AA has been help­ing many oth­ers with com­mu­ni­ca­tion and dur­ing one week had an oper­a­tional log of 300 pages. 

The CRSA sends it thanks to the ama­teur radio com­mu­ni­ty for keep­ing three fre­quen­cies — 7050, 7060 and 14270 kilo­Hertz clear, these are con­tin­u­ing to be used for emer­gency communications. 

The nation of Chi­na is in mourn­ing for the esti­mat­ed 50,000 peo­ple killed in the earth­quake on the 12th of May which mea­sured eight on the Richter scale. 

It is Chi­na’s most dead­liest earth­quake in 32 years. More than 245,000 were injured and 2 mil­lion homeless. 

(Infor­ma­tion from Fanbin/BA1RB via Jim Lin­ton VK3PC
Chair­man IARU R3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee) 

---

From: Fan­bin, BA1RB
Sent: Tues­day, May 20, 2008 6:53 PM
Sub­ject: Earth­quake QSP from CRSA 

This is the sec­ond sta­tus update report of Sichuan earth­quake disaster. 

Till 12:00 19, May, 34,073 peo­ple killed and 245,108 injured in the May 12 earth quake. Chi­na on May 19, Mon­day began a three-day nation­al mourn­ing for the tens of thou­sands of peo­ple killed in the May 12 earthquake. 

BY8AA, the Sichuan radio sports asso­ci­a­tion ama­teur radio sta­tion, pub­lished their con­tact infor­ma­tion on inter­net, includ­ing offi­cers con­tact tele­phone num­ber, repeater uplink/downlink fre­quen­cy, etc, help pub­lic and oth­er ama­teur radio oper­a­tors entered into Sichuan pro­vide an effi­cient com­mu­ni­ca­tion way. Dur­ing the 1 week oper­a­tion, BY8AA has cre­at­ed 300 pages oper­a­tion paper log, 30 hours voice record­ing and 1.5 hours video, and 2GB pho­to materials. 

Now, not only Cheng­du, oth­er cities in the earth­quake area had set­up repeaters and ama­teur radio com­mu­ni­ca­tion team to aid com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the relat­ed infor­ma­tion was pub­lished on inter­net, show­ing the repeaters cov­er­age to guide users. 

By 17 May, the long dis­tance tele­phone call some­times jammed to Sichuan area. Chi­nese Red Cross Foun­da­tion asked CRSA to set­up an HF sta­tion in Cheng­du. The call­sign is BT8RC. From 17 May, BT8RC helped CRCF estab­lished a good com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nel from Bei­jing to Chengdu. 

Issued by Fanbin/BA1RB

(Via Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man, IARU R3 Dis­as­ter Com­munni­ca­tions Committee) 

---

From: Jim Lin­ton, VK3PC
Sent: Fri­day, May 16, 2008 7:25 AM
Sub­ject: Chi­na earth­quake dis­as­ter — update

The emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions response by radio ama­teurs in Chi­na is con­tin­u­ing dur­ing the res­cue and recov­ery phase of this major dis­as­ter that has result­ed in a great loss of life. 

IARU R3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mit­tee mem­ber, Fan Bin BA1RB said, “We have more ham radio oper­a­tors ready to go for dis­as­ter relief, we will do our best as radio ama­teur oper­a­tors for the big disaster.” 

The earth­quake struck in the after­noon local time on 12 May and the imme­di­ate response by hams includ­ed the IARU radio soci­ety CRSA issu­ing a world­wide alert that a num­ber of HF fre­quen­cies were in use for dis­as­ter relief. 

These are 7050, 7060 and 14270. Fan Bin BA1RB reports soon after the earth­quake hit the local UHF/VHF repeaters in Cheng­du area were back to oper­a­tion to pro­vide communications. 

It took three days for the pub­lic telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions net­work to be restored in most but the remote areas which remain with­out communications. 

The Sichuan radio sports asso­ci­a­tion ama­teur radio sta­tion BY8AA was able to on air in HF band han­dling many valu­able front line emer­gency mes­sages and had an hourly sked with the CRSA head­quar­ters sta­tion BY1PK in Bejing. 

Bin Fan BA1RB reports that many radio ama­teurs in the earth­quake epi­cen­tre and near­by areas have put up sim­ple anten­nas from the dam­aged buildings. 

Hams from Bei­jing, Nan­jing, Wuhan and oth­er cities went to Sichuan tak­ing their own requirement. 

The dis­as­ter has hit moun­tain­ous ter­rain that requires the use of VHF/UHF and HF radio. 

— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man, IARU R3 Emer­gency Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee. 

---

From: Steve, G4HPE
Sent: Wednes­day, May 14, 2008 4:04 AM
Sub­ject: [raynethf] Chi­na Earth­quake, fre­quen­cies in use

Please pro­mul­gate to all radio amateurs: 

Michael BD5RV/4 reports that radio ama­teurs are aid­ing the relief effort in the Sichuan region of China.
Would all oper­a­tors please leave the fol­low­ing fre­quen­cies clear: 

7050kHz
7060kHz
14270kHz 

A team of ama­teurs is said to be oper­at­ing from the epi­cen­tre of the earth­quake, Wenchuan, using 40m.
In Cheng­du, the UHF repeater sur­vived the earth­quake and is now being used to direct ambulances. 

Regards,
Steve G4HPE 

---

From: Steve, VR2XMQ
Sent: 
Sub­ject: Earth­quake hit Sichuan, China

On Mon­day, May 12 at 0628 UTC, a mag­ni­tude 7.8 earth­quake hit Sichuan, Chi­na. Accord­ing to the Chi­nese Radio Sports Asso­ci­a­tion, the Chi­nese IARU Mem­ber-Soci­ety, the fol­low­ing fre­quen­cies are reserved for emer­gency ser­vices involved in the res­cue: 14.270, 7.050 and 7.060 MHz. 

The CRSA Web site reports the following: 

“On the after­noon of May 12, 2008, Wenchuan Area of Chi­na’s Sichuan province was struck by an earth­quake. Com­mu­ni­ca­tions in some of the sur­round­ing areas are cur­rent­ly cut off, and com­mu­ni­ca­tions in some oth­er areas are expe­ri­enc­ing net­work con­ges­tion because of dras­ti­cal­ly increased traffic. 

“Chi­nese Radio Sports Asso­ci­a­tion there­fore calls on its mem­bers to take actions to ensure their ama­teur radio sta­tions to oper­ate prop­er­ly, and to the extent pos­si­ble stand by on often used short- wave fre­quen­cies. If any radio sig­nal is heard from the dis­as­ter area, please do your best to under­stand what is most need­ed by peo­ple in that area and report it to the local gov­ern­ment author­i­ty. If peo­ple in the sur­round­ing areas need to pass mes­sages to their loved ones over the radio, please help them to get in touch and get the mes­sages across as soon as possible. 

“Ama­teur radio sta­tions in the dis­as­ter area and sur­round­ing areas if in work­ing con­di­tions should be used uncon­di­tion­al­ly to assist the local earth­quake dis­as­ter relief author­i­ties, and sub­ject to per­mis­sion by the said author­i­ties, to pro­vide com­mu­ni­ca­tions ser­vices to them. For emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions pur­pos­es, ama­teur radio sta­tions may also be used to pass mes­sages for local res­i­dents on a tem­po­rary basis until local telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions ser­vices resume. Ama­teur radio sta­tions of all regions should give way to and stand by for emer­gency communications.” 

Hams on the Ground 

At 1757 UTC on Mon­day, May 12, Liu Hu, BG8AAS, of Cheng­du, a town in the province of Sichuan, report­ed that a local UHF repeater sur­vived the dis­as­ter. “It keeps func­tion­ing from the first minute and more than 200 local radio hams are now on that repeater. A group of hams from Cheng­du has head­ed for Wenchuan, the cen­ter of the quake, try­ing to set up emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tion ser­vices there,” he said. 

Michael Chen, BD5RV/4, said that Yue Shu, BA8AB, also from Cheng­du, Sichuan, was report­ed to be active on the 40 meter emer­gency fre­quen­cy on Mon­day. “Up to now, there has been no fur­ther infor­ma­tion avail­able from the cen­ter zone of the quake. There are a few radio ama­teurs there, but all of the com­mu­ni­ca­tions have been cut out, includ­ing Ama­teur Radio,” Chen said. 

At 1858 UTC, Liu report­ed that the local UHF repeater in Cheng­du “keeps busy run­ning after the quake. It helps to direct social vehi­cles to trans­port the wound­ed from Dujiangyan, Beichuan and oth­er regions. Anoth­er UHF repeater also start­ed work­ing in Mianyan, sup­port­ed by gen­er­a­tors, but they are going to face a short­age of gas.” Chen said that dam­age in Cheng­du remains in the low­est lev­el, but the sit­u­a­tion is “very very bad in the coun­ties around. A few towns are said to be destroyed com­plete­ly. More than 7000 died in the town of Beichuan. Casu­al­ties in sev­er­al oth­er towns are still unknown and not count­ed in the pub­lished num­bers. It is a long and sad day.” 

Infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by Michael Ye, BD4AAQ, and Michael Chen, BD5RV/4

Please pass infor­ma­tion on to assist, many thanks. 

73 Steve, VR2XMQ 

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From: Zhang Hong, BG1FPX
Sent: Tues­day, May 13, 2008 9:55 PM
Sub­ject: VERY URGENT from CHINA!

Dear Sir, 

Chi­na hams are using 7.050MHz (includ­ing adja­cent fre­quen­cies) as emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tion fre­quen­cy for Sichuan earth­quake res­cue. Could you kind­ly inform JARL mem­bers to avoid this fre­quen­cy? Thank you very much! 

Best regards, 

BG1FPX/Zhang Hong