East Durham RAYNET group request for assistance

On 26 August, 1500 riders are expected to be cycling from Seahouses to Prior's Haven at Tynemouth for the Chris Lucas Trust in aid of Children's Cancer.

East Durham RAYNET is the control group for the event, with assistance provided by North West Durham, South West Durham, Sunderland and Northumberland RAYNET groups.

The Group request additional assistance for this event. Anyone available to help can contact the Deputy Controller Mr Owen Smith on 0191 569 3484 or 07906 965787 with their details and availability for the event.

The organisers have a website for the event at www.chrislucastrust.com.

Eastbourne and Wealden RAYNET Group seeks new members

The Eastbourne and Wealden RAYNET Group is setting out to find fresh faces to sign up.

It has one of the busiest event calendars in the country and an active engineering committee. The committee investigates various operating modes and automatic position reporting systems.

The group itself has been established for many years. Licensed new members are preferred although SWL’s are also needed to assist in logging and other duties. Age is no barrier to membership.

If you live in East Sussex or the Kent and West Sussex borders and would like to join, make contact by email to dick.jeffries@raynet-uk.net or telephone to 01323 845418.

Gloucestershire County RAYNET assist in floods

Gloucester County RAYNET was called upon for assistance last week during the floods. The service was activated by the County Council Emergency Planning Officer to assist in the evacuation of the county emergency centre on 25 July. All the RAYNET contingency equipment was stripped out of the radio room underneath Shire Hall in the city centre, and a temporary station relocated at the Tri-Service Control centre at Quedgeley, to the south of Gloucester.

The prime use of the station was to establish links to the district rest centres established around the county and to provide backup links to out-of-county sites where telephone systems would still be operational, should the Walham substation have failed.

Liaison was kept with other RAYNET Groups at Bath, Gwent and Bristol through Zone 7 Controller Chris, G8RXA. This ensured they were kept abreast of the situation and could be called in to assist if necessary. Thanks to the efforts of members working long hours on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, voice and data communications links were set up to the Triservice Control Centre from Tewkesbury, Gloucester, Cheltenham, Cirencester and Stroud.

On Thursday, a callout was issued by the County Emergency Planning Officer for radio links to be set up between the Triservice Control and the five main bottled water distribution points for vulnerable people. RAYNET members responded to the request by message distribution and assisting the volunteer teams at the locations.

Raynet groups on standby for floods

RAYNET groups in many parts of the country were placed on standby at the weekend as torrential rains caused rivers to overflow.

The RSGB Sheffield and Rotherham RAYNET Group were called out on Sunday to provide point to point communications and finally stood down on Tuesday evening. Controller Mark Harrison, G6NVT, commented that it had been an exhausting 30 hours.

Kent RAYNET call for help with Tour de France

Help is still needed for the British leg of the Tour de France. Kent RAYNET requires a large number of RAYNET members being able to pass third party traffic on 8 July 2007. If you can help contact Dennis Spalding, Kent County Controller, on dennis@spalding.freeserve.co.uk or by telephone on 01795 876091 as soon as possible.

Thailand’s amateur radio leader visits the UK

During a recent visit to the UK, the Secretary General of the Radio Amateur Society of Thailand, Phatandit Kulaphaichitra, HS1WFK (‘Pat’), met with RAYNET chairman Cathy Clark, G1GQJ and Robin Bellerby, GM3ZYE, RSGB National Coordinator for RCVS. Topics discussed included the lessons learned in the aftermath of the Tsunami disaster of 2005, and current preparations in the Asian region for any future disaster.
Pat is actively concerned with producing an automated interface between the communication systems used by government, emergency relief and amateur services, so that each can exchange data without the need for a human operator, thus speeding up the process and ensuring accuracy. He was in the UK presenting a paper on his work to an international ISO conference. He is also trying to convince his administration that amateurs are ideally placed to form the backbone of a country-wide early warning system in a region afflicted with frequent weather extremes as well as exceptional events caused by earthquakes and tsunamis.
VHF Echolink is being used internally in Thailand with external HF networks to other countries, in particular the USA and Canada. He asked about the UK system, and Clark was able to explain the role of the Network as lead organisation in liaison with UK National and Local Government, including recent joint exercises with Army Signals.

'Emergency Centre of Activity' frequencies

A report from the latest IARU Region 3 Newsletter -

'To strengthen and expand initiatives for providing humanitarian assistance in disasters and emergencies, The Global Amateur Radio Communications Conference (GAREC-2005), passed a resolution entitled "Establishing a Centre of Activity Frequency for Emergency Traffic" on five Amateur HF bands. Following a recommendation by Region 1, Region 3 at its 13th Conference in Bangalore, India August 2006 adopted the following frequencies: 3760 kHz, 7060 kHz, 14300 kHz, 18160 kHz and 21360 kHz.

Please would all amateur radio operators in Region 3 make note of these frequencies which should be kept free for emergency communications'.