Ron Hashiro

Community-based emergency communications is based on where you live and work. It is also based on where you may have to evacuate during a disaster. If you're interested in participating in emergency communications, feel free look through these pages and contact these people.

• What is emergency communications and why do we need it?
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
• How Amateurs Accomplish the Impossible During Disasters
• Emergency Communications in Hawaii Using Amateur Radio
• Year 2000 Emergency Communications in Honolulu: Dec 31, 1999-Jan 1, 2000
• How amateurs responded to Hurricane Iniki
• How amateurs responded to the Kiholo (Kona) Earthquake, Oct 15, 2006

Take time to read this PDF article. You'll recoup the investment in time with the increased, time tested and proven knowledge.

• PDF article on Lessons Learned from Past Operations and Exercises

Emergency preparedness is an individual responsibility. A disaster is not the time to find out that you're not prepared. You can't do much on the radio if you're struggling with taking care of yourself.

A lot of your personal success to weather a disaster or interruption involves how much preparations you've made when the situation is normal for the difficult times. In the time just before a disaster strikes, it is very hard to mobilize and reposition many things that's needed, so now is the time to get it done. Just make a checklist and accomplish one item at a time. Do it now!

• Personal Preparation

If you interested in some simple ideas that you can accomplish to be better prepared, see these six simple tips on radio preparations. It doesn't take much or very long to implement, but it goes a long way to being prepared. If you're wondering why, consider the key points about Hawaiian geography and radio propagation highlighted in this article. If you wish to be better prepared, check out this list.

You should also be using Anderson Powerpole connectors on your 12 Volt DC cables. Find out how the Anderson Powerpole became the national standard power connector.

A disaster is also not the time to find out that you're unable to effectively pass accurate messages in a timely fashion. You should be familiar with passing ICS-213 messages, and the ARRL Radiogram messages. To practice, join in some of these radio nets, and practice during the annual Makani Pahili hurricane exercises in mid-May and the SET (Simulated Emergency Net) in October.

• How to compose test practice messages
• Learn the radio protocol for passing ICS-213 messages on the radio
• Procedures for making Radio Tests on Simplex
• Makani Pahili 1999

Now is the time to learn more about the many different ways to make and maintain radio contact. Take a look at this web page for starters.

Alerts: To get advanced warning of weather, tsunami and other alerts, you may wish to pick up a Radio Shack Weather alert radio with the SAME (Specific Area Message Encoding) feature. You may wish to refer to the Hawaii SAME Codes to program the SAME codes into your radio.

For further information, see: Emergency Alert System and NOAA Weather Radio SAME codes

You can also monitor other near-realtime alerts.

Read up on the the General Process for Alert and Activation in Hawaii.

• Standard Operating Procedures(SOPs)
• Response Plans
• Emergency Communications Net Information


• Hawaii State RACES -- Communications for the State of Hawaii
• OCDA RACES - Communications for the City & County of Oahu
• Healthcomm - Communications for Healthcare Association of Hawaii
• Organizations and Points-of-Contact
• Links
• ARRL Field Organization Emergency Communications Web Page

These are links to external web sites of interest.

• Winlink 2000, Windows-based Internet/Amateur Radio Emergency Messaging
• Emergency Management Gold! - Communications,etc
• Emergency Management Gold!