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

[Pete Smith]

It would certainly be helpful if ARRL re-publicized these emergency 
frequencies systematically when an emergency is working.  I just went 
looking on the ARRL web site, and while I found references to Cuban 
emergency nets during Tomas on two other frequencies - 3737 and 7045 KHz 
-  there was no reminder of the established R2 frequencies or notice of 
the ones actually used, so far as I could find.

I think there are very few contesters who are so inconsiderate that they 
would *knowingly* interfere with emergency comms.  Anyone who does 
should obviously be disqualified from the contest in question, but the 
real key is to let people know which frequencies they need to avoid.

73, Pete N4ZR

The World Contest Station Database, updated daily at www.conteststations.com
The Reverse Beacon Network at http://reversebeacon.net, blog at reversebeacon.blogspot.com,
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On 11/11/2010 3:36 PM, Andreas Kretzschmar wrote:
>
>
>    
>> Unforntunately most of these emergency operations never take place on or
>> around the frequencies which are adviced to be used in the IARU bandplans.
>> Emergency centres of activity in Region 2 are:
>> 80m:3750kHz and 3985kHz.
>> 40m: 7060kHz, 7240kHz and 7290kHz.
>>      
>
>    
>> Why do they always choose frequencies were typically nobody expects
>> emergency communications?
>>      
> You do have a point. I forwarded your comment to some IARU R2 officials.
>
> Unfortunately the "official" emergency frequencies may not be suitable
> at times and not in all areas of a region.
> In the Caribbean we have serious problems on 7060 with unlicensed Venezuelan and Guyanese stations running a high power "net".
> 7240 and 7290 are still affected by european broadcasting stations.
>
> 3815 kHz is, since many years, the Caribbean Emergency and Weather Net,
> 10:30 and 22:30 UTC every day.
> It was used to run some of the emergency traffic during hurricane "TOMAS".
>
>
>