THE CHRONICLE OF THE RELATION BETWEEN THE AMATEUR RADIO SERVICE

AND THE EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT IN TURKEY

Author:

Aziz SASA,TA1E

President TRAC

TRAC ARES-Officer

BACKGROUND

• The main reason for the full release of Amateur Radio in 1983 by a change of law has been declared by the Parliament as “the unique role of this communications service during emergencies”.

• This was also the long awaited start for Amateur Radio Emergency Communication Service (ARES) in Turkey. It should take almost 5 more years to recruit a sufficient pool of operators and to convince Government Agencies from the merits of this service. TRAC had already made provisions in its bylaw, declaring ARES as a priority matter.

• To that period the only existing emergency-related government agency has been the Civil Defense.

• Several dilemmas had to be overcomed :-Civil Defense,although appointed to be the primary rescue agency during emergencies by law, had not the

required manpower and equipment available,-Civil Defense had never mobilized volunteers so far, although clear provisions existed in the related law.-Although several provisions and decretes existed, preparedness in any terms was totally nonexistent.Most of the top government officials had never dealt with volunteers.-The existing volunteer organisations in the country were mainly charities which focussed on social

matters; there were no volunteers in the field related to emergencies operationally (search and rescue or similar).

-Although Turkey had experienced many devastating earthquakes in the past (in average every second year with M>6), an emergency management existed even not “on the paper ”.

The Amateur Radio Regulations of that period were containing several contraproductive elements, such as prohibition of mobile stations, age limit of 18 years for licensees, some frequency limitations which were in contrary to the international standarts.

These hindered the wide-range application of Amateur Radio Emergency Service considerably and were totally opposite to the approach which gave a significant role to the Amateur Radio Service in the same regulations.

The ban of mobile stations was eliminated during the revision of the regulations in 1991-especially because of its necessity during emergencies. The removal or modification of the age limit-a primary factor which blocked the flow of young newcomers to Amateur Radio and therefore the required manpower for emergency operations took a much longer time (2004)

• In 1986 TRAC made the first offer of co-operation to the Governor of Istanbul on the basis of the Article 11 of the Civil Defense Law (Number 7269, Published in 1958). Although clear provisions for the engagement of volunteers were made there, the offer was rejected.

• In 1988 the decrete number 88/12777 was published by the Cabinet where for the first time ever the mechanism of Emergency Management was outlined and the whole system was organized within several specialized working groups. These working groups were led by the Ministries according to their scope of responsibilities. The most important working group was declared as the “Communications Working Group”, led by the Ministry of Transportation which was also responsible for telecommunication to that time.

• In 1989, TRAC made its second offer for co-operation to the Civil Defense in Istanbul. This time the offer was accepted.

• One week afterwards, TRAC participated for the first time into a Civil Defense Exercize; the first ever exercize with communication personnel and volunteers participating.

• It was followed by several other exercizes throughout the country.

THE BEGINNING:

TAKING INITIATIVE

SECOND STEP: DEMONSTRATING THE

CAPABILITIESThe Gulf War in 1991

• End of 1990 the General Director of Civil Defense asked TRAC verbally for assistance in case the Gulf War would start. The assignment was called “assistance for communication in the framework of the alert and alarm mechanism”. To that time the co-operation between TRAC and Civil Defense was non-formal.

• A very important highlight of this duty has been the message relaying action during the false alarm event which resulted in firing a Patriot Missile in Adana. As problems occurred in the communication between the Governor of Adana and the Central Command due to the overload in the telephone network as a result of the panic, the TRAC-Network played an important role in relaying vital informations. This duty resulted in TRAC being declared a Public Utility by the Cabinet shortly afterwards.

• Immediately after this duty, TRAC released an “Emergency Communication Handbook” which was distributed to all regional Civil Defense (TCD) regional directorates and the key TCD headquarters staff.

THIRD STEP:CONVINCINGErzincan Earthquake (1992)

• DUTIES:• -Establishing Communications to the German Red Cross, the International

Commitee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (ICRC), the Greek Deployment expected to arrive,the UN Headquarters in New York, to Ankara, Istanbul and other cities from where aid was expected.

• Organising in-site tactical communication between some few groups which had amateur radio operators within their team.

• Co-operating with the Greek Rescue Group which had 2 Radio Amateurs with them (the Greek team conducted their entire communications with Athens via the TRAC-RAAG Amateur Radio Station in Erzincan).

• Repairing and getting back to operational the mobile communication unit of the Turkish Red Crescent (under “field conditions”).

• Obtaining the location and other data of another strong earthquake, by mistake thought to be an aftershock, from the observatories in Istanbul and Boulder-Colorado (USA) by HF (SSB and AMTOR) communication.

• Alerting the Governor of the affected neighbouring Province of Tunceli in co-operation with the Mobile Communication Deployment of the Police in Erzincan.

THE FIRST ACHIEVEMENT The Memorandum of

Understanding with Civil Defense

• After the experiences of the Gulf War and the Erzincan earthquake Civil Defense accepted the proposal of TRAC to formalize the co-operation within the framework of a Memorandum of Understanding. In October 1993 this step was finalized.* This was the very first formal implication of the Article 11 in the Civil Defense Law-34 years after the law got into power. TRAC became the very first non-government voluntary organisation which became engaged into the emergency response mechanism in Turkey.

*)The translation of this and other relevant documents can be seen at www.reliefweb.int/telecoms/iaru

FURTHER STEPS

• In the period between 1992 and 1998 three major incidents were responded.• In 1998 a Memorandum of Understanding has been signed with AKUT, the very first

Voluntary SAR-Group. AKUT was guided on their efforts for co-operation with Civil Defense and a group within AKUT got trained for the Amateur Radio License Examination by TRAC.

• In spring 1999, TRAC was asked by the President of Turkey to prepare a report about emergency telecommunications and the general outlook of the present situation in terms of disaster preparedness. In the report, the necessity of Emergency Operation Centers was strongly emphasized.

• In spring 1999 the first seminar was given to the Istanbul Ambulance Unit.• In spring 1999 a very first attempt was made to get the Istanbul Communication

Working Group at the Office of the Governor operational. • June 1999 the very first Joint Exercize with the participation of the recently established

Istanbul Emergency Operation Center, the Istanbul Municipality’s Fire Brigade and TRAC was initialized by TRAC.The background was a warning from a Canadian scientist about a possible strong earthquake in the Saros-Region (northern Aegean Sea).

Marmara

(Kocaeli)

Earthquake

of 17 August

1999

AFTER THE BIG SHOCK (Kocaeli Earthquake 1999)

• TRAC was asked to set up the communication facilities of the permanent Emergency Operation Centers (EOC) in the area immediately after the “hot period” of the operation. These TRAC-Branches became a permanent and integral part of the EOC’s.

• TRAC was asked to prepare a report to the Special Parlamentary Commission which investigated the incident. The TRAC Report for the Commission was one of the references of the Commission’s Main Report presented to the General Assembly of the Parliament.

• The existing TRAC-Repeater was used in the recovery period by a big number of government and non-government agencies in the frame of a temporary special permission of the Regulatory Agency.

• October 1999, TRAC was invited to a NATO Civil Emergency Planning Seminar.

• September 1999, TRAC was awarded by the Minister of Interior for its merits.

TO PRESIDENCY OF WIRELESS AND RADIO AMATEURS ASSOCIATION

TRAC

I appreciate your excellent endeavors and valuable contributions regarding the reconstruction of communication between our Ministry and Governors

following the earthquake disaster which took place in Marmara Region

at the date of August, 17 1999; I wish you continued success in your

endeavors. September 10, 1999

Sadettin TANTANMinister of Interior Affairs

AN IMPORTANT EXPERIENCE: Düzce Earthquake

of November 12, 1999• For the very first time ever*, TRAC focussed on the interception of

all incoming foreign relief groups in order to analyze their communication structure. This decision based on the fact that the co-ordination with these valuable resources have been a common problem of all incidents in the past. For this purpose a TRAC-Team was sent to the Istanbul Airport. This team, equipped with a frequency counter, prepared a questionnary which was distributed together with the UN-Questionnary to all incoming agencies. Additionally, every team was interwieved and delivered with a form where information on all frequencies in the incident area were given. With this unique method, a database could be formed and conveyed to the incident commands. This enabled the local EOC’s to get a much better liaison with the numerous foreign relief agencies.

• FROM MORE THAN 300 DIFFERENT SAR-GROUPS, MOSTLY ORIGINATING FROM EUROPE, ONLY 8 HAD HAMS IN THEIR TEAM.

• *)British Civil Defense quoted in its report that” this action has been the first of its kind in the last 30 years of emergency operations”.

SOME PROGRESS: The Period between 2000 and 2004

• In the aftermath of the 1999 earthquakes the degree of awareness in the public grew which resulted in the establishment of numerous volunteer SAR-Groups. This awareness and will of reorganising the response mechanism grew in the government sector as well. This trend had some sort of chaotic (“hyperactivity”) characteristic at the beginning which calmed down later.

• Besides of serving in four major earthquakes, TRAC displayed the following activities in the mentioned period:

• TRAC addressed several panel discussions and similar events.• The long awaited co-operation between TRAC and several important

government and non-government agencies started. In 2000 Memoranda of Understandings were signed with the Prime Ministry (General Directorate of Emergency Management), the Turkish Red Crescent and the Ankara Office of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Socities (IFRC).

• The co-operation with some Fire Departments and Ambulance Units for which efforts have been made before the big earthquakes , became now functional.

• In 2002 a Memorandum of Understanding was signed with the Institute for Emergency Management at the Istanbul Technical University. In 2003 a Handbook of Emergency Communications was prepared and distributed to the Students of the Institute’s Master Degree Programme on Emergency Management.

• In 2003, TRAC became member of the Istanbul Emergency Telecomms Working Group at the Governor’s Office in the framework of the decrete 88/12777. This group is led by Turkish Telecom and the other members are besides the GSM and Satellite Providers, the Armed Forces , Police and other governmental emergency responders. In other cities TRAC subsidiaries were invited to join the Group as well.

• End of 2003, a TRAC-Member was sent to Bam-Iran together with the Turkish Relief Team where he organized the interagency tactical communication. This was the first deployment of TRAC to a foreign country.

• In 2004, the new emcomm vehicle, assembled by our Kocaeli Branch was deployed to Bulgaria as part of the official Turkish Team for a NATO-Civil Emergency Exercize (CPEMEX-04). The Turkish Team was the only national team without any communication problem. The TRAC deployment gave communication aid to other national teams also.

DEEPENING THE PORTFOLIO• The degree of co-operation with several ambulance units grew

continuously. TRAC acts as a facilitator and technical advisor. The dispatchers and ambulance personnel are trained in basic knowledge of radio communications. In some cities some of the ambulance personnel has been trained for the amateur license examination and became licensed. In these cases the local TRAC Repeaters are very often used as a primary backup communication facility-especially if the repeater systems of the ambulance unit can’t be reached and utilized.

• TRAC co-operates also with several Fire Departements (Firefighter Units). TRAC has been one of the co-founders of the Volunteer Firefighter Association. The scope of co-operation is the same as with the ambulance units.

ANOTHER ACHIEVEMENT

• In 2004 the TRAC Kocaeli Branch which is located in the most affected city of the 1999 Earthquakes, assembled a Mobile Emergency Communications Van. This vehicle is regarded as a benchmark for such appliances in Turkey and served succesfully in a NATO Exercize in Bulgaria , in a big train accident and several Fire Department Deployments. In 2005, it was deployed to Bulgaria together with a Firefighter Team for a international firefighter competition which was won by the Turkish Team. Lately, a enduro motorbike was donated to TRAC Kocaeli by Honda-Turkey as a complementary to this vehicle.

NEW PROJECTS

• In 2003 the decision was made to utilize an APRS-Network to disseminate informations and to make vehicle tracking possible. The other advantages of APRS, such as distributing earthquake datas, being independent from propagation variations and relatively low costs for the required infrastructure were the dominant arguments for this decision. Additionally, this tool gives the possibility to create a trilateral network between Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria easily. At present the northwestern part of the country is covered. This tool will solve the problem of conveying earthquake data to Emergency Operation Centers independent of the public telephone system automatically. A MoU, aiming this, has been signed with the National Earthquake Observation Center and an APRS System has been installed there beginning of 2005.

Lessons Learned

• Institutional Structures between government agencies and volunteer groups are quite difficult to achieve at the first stage-even when clearly defined provisions are made in the related laws and bylaws.

This is the result of a typical approach of the bureaucracy which tends to defend its “patronage” and/or its “area of sovereignity”.

The other fact is, that government agencies consider communications as “an item among many” and don’t give special attention to it-as long the public networks are working.

On the other hand, volunteers sometimes may trend to overestimate their role, ignoring the fact that government agencies are holding the primary responsibility of all actions to be taken in emergencies. In extreme situations-especially if a liasion between the parties has not been established before-”ego conflicts” may happen. Therefore, patient and systematic efforts to establish liaison and mutual understanding between the parties have to be done-especially in countries which are threatened by disasters.

Lessons Learned• Key institutions such as the Emergency Management, Civil Defence, Police,

Fire Brigades and Ambulance Services have to be targeted primarily. They often lack of qualified communications personnel and expertise, suffer mostly from budget problems, but play a crucial role in mastering emergencies. It’s important to build up a high degree of confidence with them. This will be very helpful in overcoming the traditional scepsis of these institutions towards volunteers.

• One crucial task for ARES is getting a sustainable source for qualified manpower. As Amateur Radio is a “hobby”with a mainly technical background and a big variety of activities, the “average” amateur radio operator might not be too much interested for volunteering in ARES.

• To our experience, the model of recruiting operators from Search and Rescue (SAR) Teams only, may be problematic. The problem in these cases is the different approach, and priorities of SAR-volunteers. On the other hand, SAR organisations should have at least 2 radio amateurs in their team as dedicated communicators for in-site coordination. (Civil Defense has asked TRAC to organize the communication systems of SAR-Teams)

• To our opinion, Scouts seem to be a very good source for manpower. Scouts are skilled in outdoor activities and disciplined. Being generally of young age and engaged in social matters, this source looks very promising in terms of continuity and sustainability.

Final Thoughts• To my opinion we have to find methods for “interfacing” all

communication facilities which are available if really needed. If a mobile satellite terminal has been made available on site, a Packet or APRS Network could be interfaced to it, giving the possibility of “distribution” of information to several points. Another handy Amateur Radio instrument like Echolink may be also helpful. Amateur Radio is able to make several unique tools available which are not in the “portfolio” of professionals. Amateur Radio has this ingenious face and flexibility which should be displayed in disasters. This is exactly what we now try to do in Turkey-after finally being embedded in the mechanism of the “Emergency Communications Working Group”.

• To accomplish this, for the first we have to get familiar with the emergency management and response mechanism. Doing this, we can see what the communication needs really are. This is needed to evaluate the the proper tools and actions. The routine exercizes, organized by local Emergency Managements, are very useful in that terms.

CONCLUSION• To achieve institutional structures with emergency responders needs a strategic “step by step”

sort of approach and patient efforts. It may take some time. The initiative has to be taken by the national amateur radio associations.

• There are a lot of tasks almost tailored for the amateur radio service-even if all agencies have all kinds of telecommunication tools available. Amateur Radio is the only “interface” between the citizens and the key responders in the affected areas. Co-operating with Voluntary Neighbourhood Structures could be a key instrument.

• There are numerous relief agencies in Europe which are almost always deployed to disaster areas. Their biggest problem is the liaison with the local emergency management-especially in terms of communications. This way, co-operation with local hams is possible. Amateur Radio is the only instrument of radio communications, as commercial frequencies might be used by local authorities. Therefore liaison with “recognized” relief agencies should be aimed.

• A “emergency standart procedure” should be set by the IARU, including frequency assignments for the “alerting and initial contact mechanism”. A very big problem is finding a clear frequency on 40 meters which is extremely important for medium-range communication. As most of the operators in the ex-Soviet Bloc Countries are not fluent in English, clearing a frequency can be extremely difficult. We have decided lately to form a basic dictionary with RAAG which will contain the most important words concerning emcomms in Greek and Turkish. This project could be modified that way that Russian and English is included as well.