Radio ama­teurs have a long and proud his­to­ry of pro­vid­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions to alle­vi­ate suf­fer­ing in the wake of nat­ur­al dis­as­ters. With only a low-pow­er HF trans­ceiv­er, an auto­mo­bile bat­tery, and a piece of wire for an anten­na a skilled oper­a­tor can estab­lish com­mu­ni­ca­tion from almost any loca­tion. Ama­teurs use their VHF and UHF allo­ca­tions for many appli­ca­tions includ­ing local net­works that oper­ate inde­pen­dent­ly of the com­mer­cial telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion infra­struc­ture and con­tin­ue to func­tion when reg­u­lar com­mu­ni­ca­tion links are dis­rupt­ed or overloaded.

IARU mem­ber-soci­eties orga­nize and train their indi­vid­ual mem­bers and local clubs to be ready to respond in times of need. Each of the three IARU region­al orga­ni­za­tions has an emer­gency coor­di­na­tor whose mis­sion is to sup­port those efforts and to coor­di­nate inter­na­tion­al assis­tance as required.

The IARU Emer­gency Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Guide is a resource for member-societies.