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[CQ-Contest] Disruption of Emergency Communication during CQWW SSB conte

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Subject: [CQ-Contest] Disruption of Emergency Communication during CQWW SSB contest
From: "Andreas Kretzschmar" <9y4w@gmx.net>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:16:06 +0100
List-post: <cq-contest@contesting.com">mailto:cq-contest@contesting.com>

Dear fellow contesters,

in the wake of Hurricane "TOMAS" several Caribbean Islands from Martinique 
to Tobago were seriously affected by heavy impact of storm and rain.

Only days after the incident itself the full bandwidth of distruction began to 
unfold, as more news started to trickle in from the affected areas. 
Destroyed telecommunication systems and disrupted roadways made it 
impossible to get the word out and what we heard within the first few days, 
often came on HF radio.
Especially St. Jucia J6 suffered the worst, and i was able to follow some 
of the information, when stations from J6, some actually in the affected areas 
as part of a disaster relief teams, were able to communicate on 3815 and give 
summaries of the situation as well as communicate with their respective 
Emergency Operations Centres.

During the weekend Oct 30./31. 2010 this disaster communication was seriously 
impacted on both 3815 and 7162 kHz by the activities of the CQWW SSB contest.
I personally observed during my "downtime" a DXpedition station in the 
northern caribbean working split with EU on 3815 and it was difficult to 
convince the OP to QSY. This station was of cause not the only one to 
cause serious disruptions to the Emergency Net. Several stations from EU 
were either working "reverse-split" by mistake or transmitted out of band 
intentionally. Some of them were unable to receive any call from here, but 
due to their excessive power they caused tremendous QRM.

The incident has already alerted officials of the IARU Region 2 and letters 
will be sent out to several contest comittees to put pressure on them. This was 
brought to my attention by the IARU R2 treasurer, Noel Donawa 9Y4NED, shortly 
after the incident.

I can't give them wrong because what i observed there was, if not rude and 
careless, at least quite inconsiderate.

There is no excuse for overriding such communication in the "heat" of the 
contest.
We all have to remember that Amateur Radio can save lives and property, 
even if it is not as important anymore in developed countries.
We will hopefully never again experience a hurricane making landfall during the 
CQWW weekend, but there may be other disaster situations anywhere in the world, 
which make it necessary that certain frequencies have to be kept clear for 
emergency communication.
I believe every serious contester has to show goodwill and considerate 
behaviour, as we claim to be the most experienced and best equipped group of 
the amateur radio fraternity and some even go as far as considering contesting 
as the best training for emergency communication.

We as active contesters can very well do without more stringent regulations 
coming from local organizations, authorities or the IARU. Therefore i took it 
up on myself as a known active contester 
to appeal to ALL CONTESTERS and contesting organizations to self-regulate their 
activities, respectively train their members accordingly.

Dear Contester,
before you enter the next contest, please observe the following:

- Check your news (TV, WWW, Newspapers) for any disasters which may
require emergency communication on ham radio frequencies

- Check publications in the internet for emergency frequencies in
the affected region

- Do not transmit on those frequencies, unless you are SURE that you
don't disturb any emergency traffic

- If you operate "split", make sure both your RX and TX frequencies
do not interfere with emergency traffic

I sincerely hope that we all can agree to the procedure above and
i strongly believe that we will enjoy our competitions even more once we are 
appreciated by the rest of the amateur radio fraternity.

73

Andreas "Andy" Kretzschmar, 9Y4W
-- 
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