Following their successful involvement in an Earthquake simulation exercise in September Maltese Radio Amateurs were invited to take part in a second phase of the exercise on the Italian island of Lampedusa between 28^th September and 1^st October.

The team was very limited in the mass of equipment they could take with them and had about 100 kg of equipment including radios, power supplies , antennas/dish, coax , masts , tools , laptop excluding personal belongings in a backpack. Using this they were able to maintain contact between Malta and Lampedusa on 40m whereas signals on VHF/UHF and microwave were unstable even with yagis on both sides. Malta had an Amateur Radio caravan located at Dingli which had a clear take off to Lampedusa. The caravan is equipped from hf to microwave and had radio contact with the Maltese Civil Protection base of operation where messages were relayed to.

To avoid problems all exercise emails were passed from Lampedusa to Malta via fldigi and flmsg and emails would then originated from Malta with replies being passed back the same way. They also passed test messages to other amateurs who were willing to pass email messages on their behalf.

‘Real world’ problems included a 1 hour scheduled power cut at Lampedusa which the team were unaware of so they had to resort to borrowing a car battery to power up the base station for more than an hour as their other batteries were being used by the portable station at the site of the exercise. Mobile phone connections at Lampedusa were unstable but this just added to the realism of the exercise. 

The Maltese team operated with 2 persons per site in 12 hour shifts for the duration of the exercise which was again supported by the European Union. 

At 2245 UTC on 16^th September an 8.3 Magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Chile causing Tsunami waves along the coast up to 4.5m high in places. 11 people are known to have died with many more evacuated from coastal areas.

According to reports from Chile, Radio Amateurs from “RED Chilena de Emergencia de Radioaficionados” are operational on 7050 and 7080/85kHz working with ONEMI, the Chilean Governments Interior and Public Safety ministry to gather reports from rural communities. The networks have been supported by radio amateurs in Argentina and Peru.

The Amateur Radio community in Chile is well prepared for disasters with frequent drills, in recognition that the country is in a zone where seismic activity occurs frequently. Although most of the activity was immediately after the earthquake and tsunami warnings please remember that aftershocks may trigger an amateur radio response again.

Source: Marisa Tobella Pinto CE2MT, Cesar Pio Santos HR2P, Jim Linton VK3PC

Radio Amateurs of the Malta Amateur Radio League (MARL) have completed their involvement in a European Union supported Earthquake simulation exercise in their country.

Around 300 participants simulated the scenario in which Malta was hit by a 7.6 magnitude earthquake in the central Mediterranean area 120km South West of the island. Because of the size of the simulated event the Malta Civil Protection Department were assisted by the Presidenza della Regione Siciliana-Departimento della Protezione Civile in Italy.

The Exercise started at 1700 Local time on 3^rd September and continued on until 5^th September. As part of the support provided by amateur radio to the exercise, around 220 messages were passed on behalf of the emergency services. They also provided mobile radio backup in areas not served by PMR repeaters and an ATV stream from the exercise site to the base of operation. To demonstrate all the tools available to Amateur Radio they also used digital modes to pass text files, photos etc. between locations and also assisted with setting up of networks and other IT and technical support.

This exercise provided a great opportunity for Radio Amateurs to show what they can do in a disaster in Europe, raising awareness with the authorities and highlighting that disasters can occur anywhere in our region.