Amateur Radio Emergency Communication Focus of World Conference

A group photo of the GAREC-2005 participants. ARRL/IARU Region 2 representative Rod Stafford, W6ROD, is at the extreme right.

NEWINGTON, CT, Jun 21, 2005--Tampere, Finland, played host June 13-14 to the first Global Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Conference (GAREC 2005). Participants from 17 countries and representatives of all three International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) regions gathered to discuss and exchange information on the role of Amateur Radio in emergency communication. A conference statement summarized the value of Amateur Radio to emergency communication worldwide.

"The Amateur Radio Service has the proven capabilities and capacities to serve the international community through its global network of infrastructure-independent stations," the statement concluded. "Such stations are not only most likely to withstand the physical impact of disasters, but their flexibility furthermore avoids the overload all public networks inevitably experience in the aftermath of disasters."

The statement also pointed to the Amateur Service as "an invaluable resource of skilled operators, trained and experienced in maintaining communications under the most adverse conditions." It further concluded that it's essential "to ensure that this resource can be fully utilized in the service of emergency and disaster response providers." Conferees agreed as well that the Amateur Service needs access to "appropriate portions of the shared and limited resource of the radio frequency spectrum."

The IARU has submitted the summary as an input document to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), set to take place in Tunisia this November.

Representing the IARU and chairing GAREC 2005 was Hans Zimmermann, HB9AQS, the IARU's International Coordinator for Emergency Communications. Past ARRL President Rod Stafford, W6ROD, represented IARU in his capacity as Region 2 President and the League in his capacity as International Affairs Vice President.

Major topics included cooperation between radio amateurs and institutional emergency response providers on the national level, and an exchange of experiences from recent events. Presentations showed how hams support emergency responders as skilled volunteer telecommunication operators as well as via their own global networks.

Conferees also talked over ways to improve and facilitate the work of emergency communication networks. Participants agreed on the desirability of establishing a "Center of Activity Frequency" for emergency traffic on 80, 40, 20, 17 and 15 meters. SRAL, the IARU member-society for Finland and the host of GAREC 2005 will forward a proposal to that effect to the IARU for its consideration. This could happen during the IARU Region 1 Conference in Davos, Switzerland, this September. GAREC-2005 did not put forth specific center-of-activity frequencies, but the proposal did recommend calling them "The Tampere Frequencies."

GAREC 2005 participants expressed their appreciation for the hospitality of Finnish radio amateurs and of Tampere. Because of its association with the history of emergency and disaster communication, the city's name has become nearly synonymous with emergency telecommunication. Among signal events, an experts conference there in 1991 adopted the Tampere Declaration on Disaster Communications. In 1998, the Intergovernmental Conference on Emergency Telecommunications (ICET-98) adopted the Tampere Convention on the Provision of Telecommunication Resources for Disaster Mitigation and Relief Operations. Effective as of January 8, 2005, the convention largely eliminates roadblocks to moving telecommunications personnel and equipment across international borders into and within disaster-stricken areas. Tampere has hosted several related conferences on emergency telecommunication as well. To maintain the momentum, plans already are being discussed for a second global conference in 2006.

A conference summary is available on the IARU Web site.

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