October 13/14 is a busy weekend in IARU Region 1 with two major exercises and at least one emergency happening.

In Oman Younis A41MA reports that as Tropical Storm Luban heads towards Oman and Yemen the National Committee of Civil Defence has deployed resources to the South of the country ready to deal with the flooding predicted to hit the area. An initial four amateur radio volunteers are present to help provide links to any isolated locations. This operation is initially on VHF but HF is ready to be used if required. Storms in this area generally go under-reported but are just as severe as other disasters with the previous two tropical cyclones in the Arabian Sea claiming nearly 300 lives.

In Spain their ‘Field Day 2018’ exercise takes place today ( 13th October ) with a focus on Net Control activities. HF is expected to be in use on 7110, 7145, 7175 and 14315kHz. Winlink and VHF/DMR will also be used. Full details are available at https://emergencias.ure.es/field-day-2018/ .

Finally Radio Amateurs in Romania are participating in an European Community Exercise in their country. ModEx 2018 will call for the use of 3710 and 7130kHz along with VHF/DMR, full information is at https://www.radioamator.ro/info.php?id=795 .

All exercises and actual emergencies should be expected to identify as ’emergency exercise’ or ‘exercise’ on the air. When these events are watched by representatives from our Administrations it is important that Amateur Radio is seen positively so please allow the operators room to operate.