The eastern side of India was inundated by seasonal monsoon rain with the major affected area being most of the Bihar state villages.

National Coordinator for Disaster Communication in India, Jayu S. Bhide VU2JAU, reports that HAMS from East Bengal and Patna were in action passing messages during the flooding.

The emergency communications helped the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams. All HAMs assisted in controlling the communication on VHF mainly.

The situation was brought under control. The NDRF rescued most of the people identified by the HAMS in their message handling.

The affected areas now mainly face a problem with drinking water as all the boring pumps are contaminated due to the flood. Fresh water and food packets are reaching the flood area.

The monsoonal rain also affected neighbouring Bangladesh but no report on emergency communications from there had been provided.

– Jim Linton VK3PC, Chairman IARU Region 3 Disaster Communications Committee with Jayu S. Bhide VU2JAU National Coordinator for Disaster Communication in India

A National voluntary rescue service (Vapepa) exercise is being held in Finland this weekend ( 25 – 27 Aug ) , with the most activity taking place on Saturday. Radio amateurs will serve in local/regional exercises providing VHF Emergency communications on 6m, 2m, DMR etc. Digimodes are however preferred.
Their Radio Amateurs will also provide a Nationwide HF network on 60m and 80m using the Winlink system. That activity is focusing on four local Winlink access points between 3580 — 3605 kHz.

In total the exercise will have an estimated 1000 participants with 100 Radio Amateurs assisting.

If you hear traffic from this exercise, please allow a clear frequency so that Amateur Radio can be presented in the best possible way.

As Hurricane Harvey approaches the Texas coast in the USA, various nets are activating as part of the emergency response. In addition to tropical and hurricane-force winds along the Texas coast and further inland, the main concern with this storm is heavy rain and flooding in an area which has not has a hurricane make landfall for 9 years.

Many of the frequencies used will be outside Region 1 allocations in 80m and 40m but there are some in 20m which may suffer from European QRM if operators are not careful.

The US National Hurricane Centre station WX4NHC will activate at 1900UTC 25^th August on 14.325 MHz

The Hurricane Watch Net is operating from 1500 UTC on their daytime frequency of 14.325.00 MHz. When the 20 meter band closes they are likely to move over to 7.268.00 MHz or from 0000 UTC.

VOIP Hurricane Net likely to activate at 2 PM EDT/1800 UTC on Friday 25^th August

The Southern Territory SATERN Net will activate for one day (so far) on Saturday, 26 August 2017 during local daylight hours on its regular frequency of 7.262 MHz.

Radio Amateurs are encouraged to listen carefully before transmitting to avoid QRM to Emergency activities.