Amateur Radio Frequencies & Websites 2010 Hurricane Season

[Dave]

Atlantic Hurricane Season 2010
The Atlantic Hurricane Season officially runs from 1st June to 30 November each year and Tropical Storm Alex has become the first 'named' storm of this year.
Amateur Radio continues to play a part in gathering and distributing information for the weather and emergency services each year.

Radio Amateurs in Region 1 are reminded that the following frequencies may be in use by nets in North and Central America to track and deal with the consequences of these severe weather events. It is possible for Region 1 amateurs to cause unintentional QRM to these nets so please listen carefully if operating near these frequencies:

14.300 MHz is used by the Maritime Mobile Service Net daily and as well as handling traffic from Maritime Mobile Stations, also gathers weather reports from maritime stations to assist forecasters.

14.325 MHz is used by the Hurricane Watch Net and the net is established whenever it appears that a storm may affect the US mainland. The net gathers weather information and links to the American National Hurricane Centre.

14.265 MHz is used by the Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network ( SATERN ) provides Health and Welfare traffic links for those in affected areas as well as supporting the Salvation Army Disaster relief response should a hurricane strike.

Frequencies used in Cuba
7.045, 7.080, 7.110 MHz
3.740 MHz

Frequencies used in Central America;
Red Centro Americana : 7.090 and 3.750MHz
Guatemala: 7.075 MHz
Nicaragua: 7.098 MHz

Mexico (FMRE) 3.690 and 7.060 MHz

Cuba and Mexico co-operate with long distance relays on 40m when propagation makes this possible.

Local emergency communications groups may also activate if a hurricane approaches their area and those frequencies would be announced at the time.

Maritime Mobile Service Net
http://www.mmsn.org/

Hurricane Watch Net
http://www.hwn.org/

Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network (SATERN)
http://www.satern.org/

IARU Region 1
http://www.iaru-r1.org/

===============
More will be added as the season progresses and if warranted.

Dave - AI9D - Extra Class

[MississippiHurricane]

thanks so much for this i have a shortwave radio that can pick up these but i dont know if i am able to due to distance from wherever base station is do you have any info on that or about the range? Hopefully soon ill be a ham operator as soon as i get my lazy butt moving lol

[Stephanie]

Great thread! Thank you for starting it.

[Dick Pache]

The 14325 frequency USB (upper side band) was was active during ALEX.

I check in on 14300 USB as HR1/K2LCT from Tegucigalpa Honduras

Most HAM HF (high Frequency) uses SSB (sinngle side band) nowdays

[Dave]

The Hurricane Watch Net 14.325 goes active when a TD forms and stays active until after the tropical system is dropped back to a TD or dissipates all together. Reports are taken from all points around the globe but as a system strengthens they request reports from the affected areas only with relay stations setup around the world. The relay stations are used because of changes in propogation during the day/night hours. Example, a hurricane watch net control in Texas will work with an amateur radio operator in Cayman Islands with a clear signal and no problem until a storm between the two stations gets so intense the lightning (static) in the air wipes out their signals completely. At that point a relay station comes on the air from say Utah, picks up the Cayman Island station, gets the reports, then relays that information to the net control in Texas who then relays to the National Hurrican Center in Miami. A good relay time period from the Cayman to Utah to Texas to NHC is usually about 2 mins which includes wind speed, direction, pressure, rainfall and any short remarks by the Cayman station.

For me, in Indiana, 20 meters (14.000 - 14.999) works good from sunset to just past sunrise. 40 meters (7.000 - 7.999) works good day and night while the 80 meter band (3.000 - 3.999) is only good at night and until about 9 am in the mornings after that the band conditions worsen throughout the day.

For shortwave listeners, the antenna on your radio can limit your reception and may tend to make the signals sound like they are wavering a lot. To improve the reception use what we call a "long wire" antenna which is made from any type of wire and cut to literally any length. This will improve reception and distance on all bands (radio stations). I have one long wire in my yard that is over 400 feet long and runs through the tops of 7 trees. Do not wrap the end of the wire around anything, wrap it through an insulator and tie it off then tie the insulator to the tree, house, gutter, stake in the ground, or whatever you happen to have in your yard. Wrap the other end of the wire either around your external antenna or use a 1/8" or 1/4" mono plug that fits into your shortwave receiver...some models have regular antenna jacks while some don't...if it doesn't use the wrap the wire around the pull up antenna and tie it.

Over the years I've worked stations from Milan Indiana to Hong Kong to Russia to almost every country in the world and did it on a dipole antenna. A piece of wire hung from the top of my tower over to the top of a 65 foot pine tree. Up to last year the backyard of my place looked like an antenna farm.....antenna's growing out of everything...that is until Ike hit us. Now there is one 70 foot tower with a 2/440 meter vertical on top, an 8 element 2 meter beam 2 feet down from the top, and 1 dipole about 3 feet down from the top out to 2 trees about 60 feet apart. Coax goes to the feed point at the center of the dipole and I can hear/work stations as far away as Argentina, Japan, England & Russia. That's from a piece of wire, a Kenwood TS 50 General Coverage Transmitter/receiver; and an AT 50 tuner between 25 - 50 watts of power.

*Forgot the satellite dish that sits on the tower also.

Quick lesson in ham radio and MH, go get your license!! It's easy now, no code...when I took my tests we had to do 20 wpm on morse code...receiving not sending.

[Frank2]

Thanks - our net coordinator has been giving them on our nightly 2m traffic net...

73,

Frank

[knotimpaired]

We have a SSB that here the house we used to communicate with while he was sailing.

Hmmm. This makes me think I should be listening now.

[Rocketman]

Thanks for the info. I've dabbled in Amateur Radio, though I never got my license. I may have to change that. I love building my own electronics and already have a GROL.

[cat]

Thank you, Sir, for posting this important information.

[WX5DBZ]

They hurricane watch net should be activated within the next hour or 2 per the NHC for hurricane Earl. Net is currently in informal net mode.