Wilderness Protocol for Emergencies

[Doug]

Many amateur radio love playing radio in the operators. Whether indoors or out, however, safety should be at the forefront of your mind. Terry, KG6HQD, developed (or at least wrote up) a handy Wilderness Protocol for Emergencies. It reads as follows…

The Wilderness Protocol is a ham radio procedure where someone who is in the backcountry wilderness and out of range VHF and UHF repeaters or cannot use a cell phone transmits a series of broadcasts on the 2 meter simplex national calling frequency of

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146.520 MHz
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However to save battery life, the transmissions are not made continuously.

The transmissions are made during a 5 minute window beginning at the top of the hour, every three hours beginning at 0700 (7:00 AM) until 2200 (10:00 PM)

Thus the ham will turn his radio on to the frequency of 146.52 MHz and begin calling for assistance and listening for 5 minutes at 0700 to 0705; 1000 to 1005; 1300 to 1305; 1600 to 1605; 1900 to 1905; and 2200 to 2205 hours.

If another ham radio operator picks up the signal and he is in a better location to access a repeater or use a cell phone, he can relay the information from the lost or affected party.

This information can be provided to a search and rescue organization who is looking for a lost ham radio operator so they can be monitoring 146.52 MHz themselves.

Ham operators who are hiking or backpacking in the wilderness are encouraged to tune their radios to 146.520 MHz to listen for any distress calls during the above times or just to call out and ascertain whether other hams are within radio range even if no one is experiencing any problems.

[Author]

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