[South Florida DX Association] IARU E-Letter for January 2010

[Bill]

IARU E-LETTER

January, 2010

In this issue:  A Message From IARU President Tim Ellam
        Haiti Earthquake Report
__________________________________________________________________

A Message From Tim Ellam VE6SH/G4HUA,


Secretary Stafford requested that I provide an update on IARU
activities for the IARU E-Letter.  I am pleased to do so.

Some recent activities:

o   IARU Secretary Rod Stafford, W6ROD and IARU Coordinator for
    Emergency Communications, Hans Zimmermann, F5VKP/HB9AQS have
    attended meetings of the ITU Development Sector and are
    preparing for the World Telecommunications Development
    Conference to be held in Hyderābād, India in May.

o   IARU Vice President Ole Garpestad,LA2RR and I presented our
    credentials to ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré, HB9EHT.  We
    were fortunate to have a lengthy discussion with Dr. Touré where
    we outlined the goals for IARU within ITU.  Dr. Touré expressed
    his appreciation of the activities of the IARU and the Amateur
    Service in general.

o   Prepare for the upcoming ITU Plenipotentiary Conference to be
    held in Veracruz, Mexico in October. Items on the agenda for
    this important meeting include the election of ITU officials and
    the consideration of changes to the ITU Convention and
    Constitution that may impact the role of observers such as the
    IARU. Region 2 Secretary Ramon Santoyo V, XE1KK is working with
    the Mexican society, FMRE, to arrange an amateur station for
    this event.

o   Vice President Garpestad and I attended meetings of ITU-Working
    Party 5A.  In particular, we took part in Working Group 1
    headed, for the first time, by new Chairman Ken Pulfer VE3PU.
    This gave us a chance to meet in person with a number of the
    members of the WRC-12 team.  Both Ole and I were very pleased
    with the efforts that are being made in Working Group 1 and
    Working Party 5.

o   At our recent meeting in Christchurch, the AC established a
    common position with respect to the WRC-12 agenda items that are
    of interest to the Amateur Services

o   Amateur Radio Administrative Courses (ARACs) are in the process
    of being planned in both Laos and Oman for later this year.

o   Developed a plan to have the IARU better represented before
    some Regional Telecommunication Organizations.

o   Put in place a proposal to have more than one AC meeting a year
    with the additional meeting to be held on a "virtual" basis
    either through radio conferencing or teleconferencing.

o   Communication amongst the AC members and the team preparing for
    WRC-12 has been assisted by the establishment of two email
    reflectors.  This, I think, went a long way in enhancing our
    discussions during the AC meeting which was held in
    Christchurch, New Zealand last October

I am very pleased with the cooperative approach of the AC members and
our WRC-12 team and I think it bodes well for our future activities.

When I was first elected to this position, I provided the AC members
with my view of our goals for 2009-2014.  It is my hope that we should
strive to make the IARU the global voice of the Amateur Radio Services
and the world's leading organization of Amateur Radio  Member
Societies.  I believe we are well along in that process.

One of our other goals is to provide more effective communication to
Regions and Member Societies.  Hopefully we are improving in that
respect through some of the mechanisms we now have in place, such as
this E-Letter.  We also wanted interact with our Member Societies more
frequently than we have in the past.  Ole, Rod and I have been able to
do that in the past few months by our attendance at various  Hamfests
or in meeting with Societies directly.  We both plan to have similar
meetings throughout 2010.

Finally, I would like thank each of you for your continued support of
the IARU and its activities.  Our work together will continue to
enhance the position of the Amateur Radio Services.

Please feel free to contact me or any member of the officer team if
you have any questions or issues that you would like to raise.  I can
be reached by email at ve6sh at iaru.org.

==> Haiti Earthquake

(Note:  The following account of the activities related to the
response to the earthquake in Haiti that took place on January 12,
2010 is taken from the ARRL web site and provides information that is
available as of January 14, 2010.)

On Tuesday, January 12 at 4:53 PM Haiti time (2153 UTC), a magnitude
7.0 earthquake hit 10 miles (15 kilometers) west of Port-au-Prince,
the island nation's capital. Communications in and out of Haiti have
been disrupted. The ARRL encourages US amateurs to be aware of the
emergency operations on the following frequencies: 7.045 and 3.720 MHz
(IARU Region 2 nets), 14.265, 7.265 and 3.977 MHz (SATERN nets), and
14.300 MHz (Intercontinental Assistance and Traffic Net); the
International Radio Emergency Support Coalition (IRESC) is also active
on EchoLink node 278173.

There was no firm estimate on how many people were killed by Tuesday's
quake. Haitian President Rene Preval said the toll could be in the
thousands: "Let's say that it's too early to give a number."

Tuesday's quake was felt in the Dominican Republic, which shares the
island of Hispaniola with Haiti, and in Eastern Cuba, but no major
damage was reported in either place. The January 13 edition of The
Daily DX reported that the Rev John Henault, HH6JH, made contact  late
Wednesday morning with the Intercontinental Assistance and Traffic Net
(IATN) on 14.300 MHz; this is the IARU Global Center of Activity
frequency for emergency communications. He said that he was  safe, but
had no power and no phone service. He was operating on battery power
and hoping to get a generator running later in the day. The edition
also noted that Pierre Petry, HH2/HB9AMO -- who was in Cap Haitien
(about 140 km north of Port-au-Prince) is safe; Petry is in Haiti
working for the United Nations World Food Program.

On Wednesday afternoon, Fred Moore, W3ZU, assisted Jean-Robert
Gaillard, HH2JR, with a phone patch to his friend Ariel in Miami.
"It's bad, it literally is bad," Gaillard told Ariel. "We don't know
how many people are dead. We do not know what to expect. It's chaos,
I'm telling you -- it's real chaos. We are really in a disaster area.
It's really a war zone. Many, many buildings in the downtown  area are
stripped from the ground with many people buried underneath them - you
name it, it's bad." Gaillard, who lives in
Port-au-Prince, was using his neighbor's generator to make the
contact. "It's really chaotic. I've never been in a war, but this is
what a war zone would be like. Dead bodies all over the place, dead
bodies buried. All I can tell you is that I'm okay, my house is  okay.
We've had 30 aftershocks, the main one yesterday. We are expecting
some more shocks, so I'm a bit nervous to be inside the house."

According to IARU Region 3 Disaster Communications Chairman Jim
Linton, VK3PC, members of the Radio Club Dominicano (RCD) -- the
Dominican Republic's IARU Member-Society -- and Union Dominicana de
Radio Aficionados (UDRA) are preparing to go to Port au Prince on the
morning of Friday, January 15, where they will install
HI8RCD/HH, an emergency radio communications station and a mobile station.

FEMA (U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency) Administrator Craig
Fugate advised that US assets should not self-deploy to affected
areas. "Initial reports from Haiti in the wake of yesterday's
earthquake are concerning and troubling," he said. "During times like
these, the emergency response community always stands ready to assist
those in need. The United States Department of State has the lead for
foreign disaster assistance, and US assets should deploy only if
tasked to do so by the State Department. The most urgent need that the
response community can fulfill at this time is supporting ongoing
disaster relief fund-raising efforts."

On Thursday, January 14th, planes carrying teams from China and
France, Spain and the United States landed at Port-au-Prince's airport
with searchers and tons of water, food, medicine and other supplies --
with more promised from around the globe. US Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton said that "tens of thousands, we fear, are
dead" and said United States and the world must do everything possible
to help Haiti surmount its "cycle of hope and despair." The US Army
said a detachment of more than 100 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne
Division was heading out from Fort Bragg in North Carolina, looking
for locations to set up tents and other essentials in preparation for
the arrival of another 800 personnel on Friday. That's in addition to
some 2200 Marines to be sent, as the military prepares to help with
security, search and rescue missions and the delivery of humanitarian
supplies. More than a half-dozen US military ships also are expected
to help, with the largest, the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson,
arriving later
Thursday.

Calls to emergency services weren't getting through because systems
that connect different phone networks were still not working, said
officials from a telecommunications provider in Haiti. The
International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is deploying 40 satellite
terminals and 60 units with broadband facility to re-establish basic
communication links, along with experts to operate them. The ITU will
also set up "a reliable, responsive and complete cellular system
designed to enable vital wireless communications aimed at
strengthening response and recovery mechanisms in a disaster zone,"
said ITU Emergency Communications Division Chief Cosmas Zavazava. The
ITU has allocated a budget of more than $1 million US dollars to
strengthen the disaster response effort in Haiti.

ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré, HB9EHT, expressed his solidarity
with the people of Haiti and offered his condolences to the bereaved
victims of the disaster. "The whole world is in shock following the
devastation and untold misery caused by the earthquake in Haiti," Dr
Touré said. "ITU will do everything possible to provide assistance to
the people of Haiti by re-establishing telecommunication links which
will be vital in the rescue and rehabilitation efforts in the days
ahead."

"The scope of the disaster clearly shows that the response to this is
going to be a long term effort," said ARRL Media and Public Relations
Manager Allen Pitts, W1AGP. "The ARRL has been in contact with
communications leaders of the American Red Cross and Salvation Army,
as well as other key Amateur Radio operators throughout the region. As
teams from the hundreds of responding agencies worldwide are formed
for deployment, many will have Amateur Radio components. ARRL is
committed to providing communications aid to our served agencies and
working with the international community in this time of crisis. At
this time there are no known requests from agencies for amateurs to
travel to Haiti, but this can change. If it develops that there are
ARES® assignments for a deployment in Haiti, these will be vetted and
processed through each Section's Section Emergency Coordinators."

The situation in Haiti is still chaotic. More information will be
posted on the ARRL web site (www.arrl.org)  as soon as possible.
Information is being validated and shared between many amateur groups
and news sources as it unfolds.

------------------------------------------------

If you have any information that would be appropriate to publish in
this electronic newsletter, please contact me at w6rod at iaru.org.

Rod Stafford W6ROD
IARU Secretary

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The IARU E-Letter is published on behalf on the Administrative Council
of the International Amateur Radio Union by the IARU International
Secretariat. Editor: David Sumner, K1ZZ, IARU Secretary.

Material from The IARU E-Letter may be republished or reproduced in
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