[South Florida DX Association] Dominican Republic Hams

DNovoa dnovoa at bellsouth.net
Wed Jan 20 21:17:32 EST 2010


  
Radio hams flee Haiti after convoy fired on

Eight radio amateurs from Radio Club Dominicano (RCD) who were operating
under the callsign HI8RCD/HH have had to abort their operations after
the convoy they were travelling in was fired on.

EB9GF, who is integrated in the Spanish Red Cross contingent, was able
to contact the colleagues from the Radio Club Dominicano (RCD).

The RCD has currently two VHF repeaters in use for operations:

- 146.970 (-600), CTCSS 100 Hz. Placed in the Dominican Republic.

- 145.350 (-600), CTCSS 100 Hz. New repeater active near the border with
Haiti.

RCD initially reported that their team crossed the Haitian border at
10:50 hours Haitian time arriving at the Dominican Embassy in Haiti at
14:29 hours when they started installing and testing their equipment.

Within a few hours though, reports via the RCD Facebook page confirmed
by a long telephone conversation between Hugo Ramón HI8VRS and Ramon
Sanyoyo V, XE1KK reported that the HI8RCD team of eight amateurs, were
back in the border town of Jimani (Dominican Republic).
Their convoy, which included other non related Dominicans, was assaulted
and one person reported dead.

The Radio Amateurs were uninjured but decided to leave the capital for
safety and return to the border unescorted. They report the situation as
extremely unsafe and scary.

The repeaters they have installed remain in service linking the Haitian
and Dominican capitals, and are being used by the Red Cross and Civil
Defense since there is no other way to communicate. The station at the
Embassy in Haiti could not be activated though.

To confirm, all members of the HCD team are safe and have returned to
Jimanji in the Dominican Republic.

In other reports, John Henault HH6JH who is engaged in Missionary work
with homeless children in Port au Prince continues to make contacts on
20m using power from a neighbour's generator and very pleased that
amateur radio enabled him to let his friends in the USA know he was
alive..

Another radio amateur in the country, Pierre Petry HH2/HB9AMO who works
for the UN food program is also safe. However nothing is known at this
stage of about another ten hams in Haiti.

Thanks to Ismael EA4FSI, Cesar HR2P and Jim VK3PC for their reports.

IARU Region 1 website
 <http://www.iaru-r1.org/> http://www.iaru-r1.org/





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