Subj : Amateur Radio Newsline (A) To : All From : Daryl Stout Date : Fri May 12 2023 00:02:02 Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2376, for Friday, May 12th, 2023 Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2376, with a release date of Friday, May 12th, 2023, to follow in 5-4-3-2-1. The following is a QST. Hams in the Caribbean gear up for storm season. Amateurs help a woman in India reconnect with her family -- and the ARRL offers US hams assistance in evaluating their RF emissions. All this and more, as Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2376 comes your way right now. ** BILLBOARD CART ** CARIBBEAN REGION HAMS GEAR UP FOR STORM SEASON STEPHEN/ANCHOR: Our top story takes us to the Caribbean, where hams await the storm season ahead with formal training and an emerging disaster response network. John Williams, VK4JJW, brings us those details. JOHN: With the approach of this year's hurricane season in the Caribbean region, emergency training exercises have got underway again for amateurs in the Youlou Radio Movement/Rainbow Radio League in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. As always, amateurs will be relying largely on HF communications because the mountainous terrain of the islands in the region provides challenges for successful VHF signal paths. Youlou has been in the process of growing its emergency network and now has 10 stations based on the main island, including one near the airport. The league's director, Donald de Riggs, J88CD, told local media outlets that the hams are closer than ever to creating the island-wide HF emergency network they have long envisioned. They are also looking to support a more robust maritime rescue and air response network for disasters throughout the region. New equipment has been donated and one of their biggest benefactors has been Australia-based Barrett Communications. The most recent of three shipments from that company arrived in February, bringing SDR transceivers and sturdy antennas, hopefully capable of surviving the coming season of storms. This is John Willliams, VK4JJW. (THE VINCENTIAN, AIR FORCE TECHNOLOGY) ** WEST BENGAL AMATEURS RECONNECT FAMILY AFTER 10 YEARS STEPHEN/ANCHOR: It took 10 years for a woman in India to find her way back to the family she left behind when she married. Jim Meachen, ZL2BHF, tells us how hams assisted her in her journey. JIM: An early marriage and separation from her family kept Rubina Begum apart from her family in Bengal for more than a decade. With the help of police and the West Bengal Radio Club, the relatives have found one another again. According to reports in the Times of India and the Millennium Post, the National Commission for Women, a government entity that advocates for women, had been trying to assist her in tracing the family she had lost touch with after marrying into a Kashmiri family at the age of 14. The media reports said that the woman, who is now 24 years old, was originally brought to the Baramulla sector in Jammu and Kashmir to be married because her father was unable to bear the expense of raising four children at home. The woman's brother, Hassan Ali Sheikh, told the Times of India that in the ensuing years they believed she was lost to them forever. But he spoke with her, at long last, on Wednesday, May 3rd, after the women's commission contacted state police who reached out to the hams in West Bengal. The club has a long track record of facilitating such reunions. After contacting the woman with the phone number provided, club secretary Ambarish Nag Biswas, VU2JFA, reached out to a colleague proficient in Hindi and Kashmiri and details of her story finally emerged. Her brother is expected to travel and bring her home to Bengal soon to be with the family she has missed so much. This is Jim Meachen, ZL2BHF. (TIMES OF INDIA, MILLENNIUM POST) ** ARRL OFFERS ASSISTANCE TO HAMS FOR RF COMPLIANCE STEPHEN/ANCHOR: If you haven't already checked your station to evaluate its compliance on RF exposure, the ARRL is offering some help. Dave Parks, WB8ODF, has that story. DAVE: The ARRL has reminded amateurs in the United States that it is making its resources available to help licensees comply with FCC rules on RF exposure limits. Those limits went into effect in 2021 and a two-year transition period was granted to permit hams to conduct evaluations and make necessary changes for stations that do not conform to the exposure rules. The ARRL issued its reminder to hams just as the transition period ended on May 3rd. Hams are not exempt from conducting such evaluations even if they transmit at very low power. The league's resources include a video about RF exposure and evaluation; an RF exposure calculator and an RF safety section excerpted from the ARRL Handbook. Perhaps most importantly, the league is encouraging all hams to make use of these resources whether or not they belong to the ARRL or have established a website account. Visit arrl.org for more details. This is Dave Parks, WB8ODF. (ARRL) --- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32 * Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - Little Rock, Arkansas (618:250/33) .