På grund av stormen Sara, vill vi alla radioamatörer tar hänsyn till följande meddelande:

Text: G0DUB/Greg IARU R1 EMCOR, genom SM7MWA/Thomas.

PROTECTION OF FREQUENCIES REQUESTED DUE TO TROPICAL STORM SARA

During the early hours of today, the low pressure area in the central Caribbean Sea became a tropical depression and later Tropical Storm Sara. At 13:00 EST (18:00 UTC) its center was located at 15.7 ° N and 82.9 ° W, 85 km NE of Cabo Gracias a Dios, on the border between Nicaragua and Honduras and 330 km ESE of Guanaja Island, Republic of Honduras. Sara is moving west at a rate of 19 km/h. Since this morning, it has been raining in towns in eastern Honduras, especially in the departments of Gracias a Dios and Colon.

In the next 24 to 48 hours, Tropical Storm Sara is expected to move along a similar track, slowing down its speed, very close to the coast of Honduras. During its movement over the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea it may gain a little more in organization and intensity.

For this reason we have received a request from the emergency coordinators of Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua to protect the emergency frequencies.

40m band: 7080 kHz, 7143 kHz, 7198 kHz

2m band: 146.520 MHz, 147.300 (+600) MHz.

Earlier today we learned through Juan de la Cruz Rodriguez Perez (YN1J), that they are listening on Echolink ”CONFERENCE ZONE YN”, linked to the Node YN1J-L and remain alert for any help that can be provided.

We have also learned that for this same reason the coordinators of Honduras and El Salvador have decided to use the FRACAP conference to maintain unified transmissions with the objective of attending to communications related to this tropical storm that will affect the region of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala with rains through VHF repeaters with the help of the EchoLink VoIP system.

Due to this, the nodes YS1GRE-R, HR2OMG-R and HR2RCH-R are already connected to the FRACAP conference. The SysOp of this conference, colleague Sigfrido Estuardo Rodas Paz (TG9SRP), emergency coordinator of Guatemala, is carrying out monitoring to support in whatever is necessary. All this is also sponsored by Claudio Ramón Rodríguez Durón (HR2CRD), emergency coordinator in Honduras.

According to information from Sigfrido himself, Guatemala will probably join this effort with the node TG6ORP-R in search of unifying communications in the affected region. The coordinators of the region appreciate that if you connect any Echolink system or node to the FRACAP conference, you do so ensuring non-interference in the emergency communications that are being carried out in said conference and the nodes mentioned.

I must add that the request for the 7110 kHz and 7120 kHz frequencies that are being used in the eastern region of Cuba by the emergency networks in those provinces activated due to the earthquakes that occurred there is maintained.

We thank all colleagues for disseminating this information and for protecting the mentioned frequencies to guarantee emergency communications in these Central American countries.

Carlos Alberto Santamaría González, CO2JC.

IARU R2 Emergency Coordinator.