The 41^st HamRadio Exhibition at Friedrichshafen was also the venue for two meetings for Emergency Communicators which were well received.

On Friday 24^th June, the first IARU Region 1 Emergency Communications meeting was held in the English language with an average 20 attendees from 10 countries covering a wide range of topics from reports from other regions, proposals to change the IARU Emergency Message procedure and information on the Emergency Communications Groups in Germany, Poland and Slovenia. The presentations are available on the following links;

On Saturday the 4^th DARC Notfunk Universitaet took place with many presentations on skills and techniques in the German language. A report and some of the presentations are available at;

http://​www​.darc​.de/​d​e​r​-​c​l​u​b​/​r​e​f​e​r​a​t​e​/​n​o​t​f​u​n​k​/​b​e​r​i​c​h​t​e​-​v​o​n​-​a​k​t​i​v​i​t​a​e​t​e​n​/​h​a​m​-​r​a​d​i​o​-​2​0​16/

Planning starts now for Emergency Comms activities at the next Ham Radio on July 14 – 16 2017.

Radio Amateurs in Cyprus are currently active in emergency activities tackling the biggest forest fire the island has ever dealt with in the Solea region. Activity is currently using only the VHF band, mainly the local RV48 (R0) and RV58 (R5) repeaters. Hams in and around Cyprus have been requested to keep clear of these repeaters to aid the emergency communications activity.

Fire fighting forces are deployed around the perimeter of the fire. The main fronts of the fire are active, but due to high winds and very high temperatures, the effort to extinguish the fronts seems mammoth. Thick smoke is complicating the task. In addition to the ground forces, a total of 16 aircraft are also operating, with aircraft coming from Israel, Greece and later today France and Italy.

It is estimated that some 20 – 25 sq km of forest have burned so far, while 4 villages are in grave danger of destruction, as fires are currently located on their perimeter.

Unfortunately two fire fighters have lost their lives in the line of duty, while another 2 are seriously ill in hospital. Cyprus frequently suffers forest fires during its hot summer months, but these are believed to be the first firefighter deaths for years.

Any additional information may be found on the CARS website at http://​www​.cyhams​.org/

On Wednesday 8^th June between 1800 – 1930UTC Radio Amateurs from the DARES Emergency Group in the Netherlands and B‑EARS in Belgium will be taking part in an exercise simulating a Power Outage in the south of the Netherlands and part of Belgium. In the exercise scenario the groups have been requested to provide welfare and secondary communications links between North Brabant ( near Eindhoven ) and the rest of the country.

The exercise will test the ability of the groups to set up a wide area VHF and a HF network on the planned frequencies of 7065 kHz ( Primary ) and 7110kHz ( Secondary ). The 7065 kHz frequency being needed as Novice Licences in the Netherlands ( PD ) are not allowed to operate above 7100kHz. Operations will be mostly voice but Winlink/Digital modes may also be used.

Radio Amateurs are asked to keep those frequencies clear for the time of the exercise.

Full information ( In Dutch ) is available on the DARES website at http://​www​.dares​.nl/​n​i​e​u​w​s​/​2​4​5​-​o​e​f​-​p​o​w​e​r​-​o​u​t​age .