Executive Summary:
Turkey is one of the most endangered countries in terms of earthquakes. It has a long track record of devastating earthquakes. The most recent major ones occurred in 1999, killing around 16000 people in the most industrialized and inhabited region of the country.

Since 1991, amateur radio played a key role in emergency communications in Turkey. As the legal background of its introduction has been emergency communications, the only thing to be done was implementing it systematically. This was done by TRAC ("Telsiz ve Radyo Amatörleri Cemiyeti"), the national amateur radio society of Turkey. TRAC is member of the International Amateur Radio Union IARU which represents all national societies and the global amateur radio community in the ITU. The following report will point out the various positive contributions of amateur radio to the public during emergencies.

Prologue:
"Amateur means Avocational as opposed to Vocational-unpaid but not untrained,not undedicated,or not inexperienced;Amateur in the very best sense of the Olympic tradition." (ARRL Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Course-Level 1,Page 18)

Background:

In the period between 1937 and 1983, amateur radio has been not regulated in Turkey. The existing law incorporated some vague licensing provisions without naming any radio services . The maritime service, besides law enforcement and some few highly important public utility services were the only ones which were permitted to operate two- way radio systems. Military was exempted from any radio regulation.

Amateur radio was regulated for the first time in Turkey in the year 1983. The main reason why it was mentioned namely in the new "Wireless Act" has been declared in the Advisory Assembly (the transitional parliament after the Military Coup in 1980) as "its crucial importance in establishing emergency communication.

" Previously, in the years 1964 and 1966, two attempts have been made jointly by the Ministry of Defence, TRAC and the Electric Engineers' Association to change the existing law. It found its way to the parlamentary commission but was never put into the legislation agenda. The General Command of the Turkish Armed Forces has been known of making other attempts. They all failed. Finally, after the Coup of 1980, the law was changed and the door for amateur radio got fully open.

After the change of the law, Amateur Radio Regulations were issued in 1984. They contain detailed provisions about the utilization of Amateur Radio in emergencies. TRAC was highly involved in the preparation of those.

The Turkish "Civil Defence Law" of 1958 contains also several enhancing provisions about the engagement of volunteers in emergencies. Those were not utilized for a long period.

TRAC, the National Amateur Radio Association of Turkey was founded in 1962. Due to the difficulties related to the existing regulations at that time , main activity has been training in electronics. TRAC issued a monthly magazine which was the only one in the country for long years. It was therefore some sort of a reference for those who wanted to learn about electronics. The magazine was recommended by the Ministry of Education as a learning aid. There were some few amateur radio activities of individuals; but due to the regulations the association was not not officially involved in those.

Chronology:

With the new regulation issued, TRAC shifted its field activities to amateur radio. Subsidiaries were founded countrywide.

In 1985 the first attempt to get involved into emergency preparedness was made. However, it was not successful.

Then, in 1989, another attempt was made. A very helpful factor has been the activation of Civil Defence; some risks for emergencies were supposed due to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Therefore this attempt for co-ordination with Civil Defence was succesful.

Several field-trainings were attended; it was the very first time ever that radio communication was utilized during such events-thanks to the presence of amateur radio.

In 1990, TRAC was asked to set up a network as a preparation for the up-and-coming Gulf War. After that informal request of Civil Defence a countrywide net was set up , operating during the whole "hot period". This network proved to be very valuable when complications occurred after the firing of a "Patriot"- Missile by mistake in Adana.

That contribution was honored by the government; TRAC was declared a "Public Utility" shortly after the end of the Gulf War in 1991.

In all major emergencies following the Gulf War, TRAC has been the first responder in emergency telecommunications. The only exception has been a landslide which was a local event without any communication failure.

1991-Tbilissi (Republic of Georgia) Earthquake: Although not being a domestic disaster, this event is worth to be mentioned in several aspects.

Actions were the following:

-Establishing communication with the amateur radio station at the disaster site. This was the only communication resource available in the disaster site.

-Getting the list of the urgently need materials and medicals from the disaster site.

-Conveying these informations to the Red Crescent HQ in Ankara via Telex.

-Tracking the Red Crescent Convoi by periodical phone calls to Red Crescent HQ until it arrived at the border. Conveying the location information to Tbilissi.

-Accompanying the Convoi from Trabzon to the border, organizing an Georgian Official who was supposed to pick up the convoi at the border and accompany it to the destination.

1992-Erzincan Earthquake: First-Step Actions: Identification of the location shortly after the event in cooperation with some Provincial Civil Defence Units and TRAC Subsidiaries , alerting Civil Defence HQ in Ankara, sending out a first volunteer responder from Kayseri (600 km distance), getting the first HF station operational in the disaster location within 7 hours, alerting some foreign relief teams on HF, sending out a responder team from Istanbul.

These actions were followed by a 6-day operation at the disaster site:
-Co-operation with the Greek Response Team which was accompanied by 2 amateurs. This team utilized the TRAC Station for their whole communications with Athens.

-Assisting the Turkish Red Crescent by setting up their communication facilities,including some repair work on the field.

-Providing communications between Ankara and the disaster site.

-Providing communications between various relief agencies and the disaster site.

-Providing communications between Istanbul and the disaster site. This link has been used primarily for health-and-welfare traffic together with gathering informations from the Observatory in Istanbul.

-Establishing data (AMTOR) communication between the disaster site and the amateur radio station of the UN-HQ in New York. This link was mainly used to gather informations from the US Geological Service in Colorado.

-Handling the communication needs which occurred after a major earthquake in the neighbouring Province of Tunceli. This was accomplished in co-operation with the communicators of the Police. TRAC collected informations about the epicenter and strength from the observatories in Istanbul and Boulder-Colorado, the Police infrastructure was used to alert the Governor of Tunceli.

1993-Signing a Memorandum of Understanding with Civil Defence. See Annex.

1995-Dinar Earthquake: First responders were the neighbouring TRAC-Subsidiaries of Denizli, Burdur and Antalya. Response time was approximately 2 hours after the incident. Two additional teams from Istanbul were deployed additionally. This was a 6 days operation.

Actions were the following:

-Providing communications between the Istanbul Observatory , Ankara and the disaster site.

-Providing communications between Civil Defence HQ and the disaster site.

-Providing tactical communications between the local Emergency Management and all relief agencies operating in the disaster site.

-Assisting the Swiss Rescue Team in some communications matters.

-Assisting Red Crescent.

1995-Presenting a Proposal Communication Plan to the Governor of Istanbul. After the two previous experiences TRAC decided to prepare a proposal plan for Istanbul, urging the immediate need of establishing of Emergency Operation Centers and mobile units. There was no response.

1996 -Establishing the Emergency and Retrieve Communications Network for the World Championship for Hanggliders and Paragliders: This activity was considered as a training. We established the network voluntarily for the Turkish Aerosports Association. Operation was conducted by the TRAC-Denizli Subsidiary.

1997- Establishing the Emergency and Retrieve Communications Network for the Aerosports Olympics for Hanggliders and Paragliders: This activity was a repetition of the Activity of 1996, but in a much larger scale. It included liaison with the SAR Teams of the Turkish Air Forces. 4 Emergencies were handled, including ground-air coordination in case of emergencies.TRAC-Teams from Denizli, Ankara,Antalya and Istanbul participated , utilizing mobile units.

1998-Karabuk/Bartin Flood: First responders were the local TRAC-Subsidiary in Karabuk and TRAC-Sakarya. Karabuk reported to Sakarya via the VHF-Repeater from where the messages were relayed to Civil Defense HQ and the Prime Ministry via HF. The TRAC-Network has been the only reliable and continuous communication resource. Having trained Civil Defence Personnel and assisted them in obtaining an amateur radio license was payed off. This was the first event where co-operation was made with the first Turkish volunteer rescue team (AKUT). As they had licensed amateurs in their ranks, liaison was easy.

1998-Draft Plans for some various highly endangered Provinces. Efforts were made to convince officials of making preparations for disasters.Some proposals for the installation of amateur radio based systems were made.

1998-Adana/Ceyhan Earthquake: Immediate response was made by the local TRAC-Subsidiary, followed by two teams from the neighbouring TRAC-Subsidiaries (Gaziantep and Kayseri). This was a 4-day-operation which was mainly focussed on establishing tactical communications.

1998-Signing a MoU with the volunteer AKUT SAR Team. (See Annex)

1998-Presenting a paper on emergency communication at the International Earthquake Workshop in Ankara.

1998-Efforts for obtaining co-operation with the recently established Turkish Emergency Management Agency at the Prime Ministry. As our hope was growing that a superior agency would minimize liaison problems at the field, we started efforts to sign a MoU with this particular agency.

1999-Presenting a proposal for a Emergency Management and Communication Center for the City of Izmit. Beginning of the year a proposal for converting a museum ship anchored at the harbour of Izmit to an auxiliary Emergency Management Center was made .

1999-Presenting a situation report and an analysis of emergency preparedness to the Office of the President. This report was presented on request in April 1999.

1999-Training of the Istanbul Ambulance Unit (Ministry of Health) personnel in communications. April 1999, the Ambulance personnel was introduced in basic radio communications.

1999-Signing a MoU with the Izmir Ambulance Unit.

1999-Efforts for establishing liaison with the recently installed Istanbul Emergency Communication Center. May 1999, talks with Istanbul EOC started. The aim was starting some preparedness work in terms of emergency telecom.

1999-First training with Istanbul EOC. Some press reports about an earthquake forecast of a Canadian Scientist for the Marmara-Region for July 10th was taken as an opportunity to conduct a short-term training. This included also liaison with the Istanbul Fire Department.

1999-August 17th : Waking up with a tremendous earthquake. Almost all TRAC-Branches were on the air approximately within ½ hours time. Within 3 ½ hours a mobile set up arrived in Izmit, the epicenter-permanently in contact with Ankara and reporting about the situation witnessed on the way. A station at the Istanbul Civil Defence HQ, located next to the worst hit area of Istanbul, was activated within 1 ½ hours. Istanbul EOC was activated within 2 hours. 4 hours after the incident all affected areas except Yalova were in contact with Ankara- solely via amateur radio.

Actions were the following:

-Establishing communications between the major incident sites and Ankara.(The Ministers of Interior and Construction personally used TRAC-Stations to convey their orders).

-Interagency Tactical Communications at various incident sites; a TRAC-Repeater was conveyed to a strategical mountaintop approximately 10 hours after the incident.(It's now permanently installed there. Before the earthquake there was no possibility to get permission from the owner of the transmitter site)

-Logistics Communications; simply by deploying a TRAC-Member to a water-bottling factory, drinking water supply for almost 90% of the area could be maintained easily.

-Troubleshooting; according to the orders of the Prime Ministry TRAC-Mobile Units were deployed to areas where communication failures were detected.

-Tactical Communications for Civil Defence; as about 35 TRAC-Subsidiaries were in liaison with local Civil Defence already, the deployments of those were accompanied by TRAC-Members. This made co-ordination with local authorities very easy,as in almost all location other TRAC members were operating-mostly aside the local Emergency Management (EM) .

-Establishing co-ordination between the local EM and the incoming foreign relief groups; they were more than 200 different groups from almost all the world coming in. Unfortunately only few utilized amateur radio. These were the relevant groups, such as the German THW, the Swiss Rescue Team. It was no problem to get in touch with them-we had only to scan through the 2 Meter Band to spot and contact them. We moved around the area to spot the other groups and to figure out their communication setups.

-Setting up a database for Istanbul EM; as most of the injuries were conveyed to hospitals in Istanbul there was the need of collecting informations. TRAC volunteers were setting up a server system which could be accessed by the public and various agencies by internet at the later stage. That way any health-and-welfare inquiry could be handled.

-The TRAC-Net was used by the Prime Ministry, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Housing and Construction, Red Crescent, Civil Defence and the EM's of Istanbul,Izmir, Kocaeli,Sakarya,Tekirdag,Bolu,Duzce,Zonguldak,Yalova and Eskisehir.

-170 volunteer TRAC Members from 16 various Subsidiaries were joining the operation directly. Duration was 7 days.

Although Turkish Telecom displayed a heroic performance in restoring the damaged Fiberoptic Connection within couple of hours under the most adverse conditions, it took 72 hours to restore the public network to the most extend. This delay was caused by the extensive damage at several switches.

This event was the most demanding one ever faced. The boundaries of the affected area were approximately 500 km in the East-West axis and 200 km in the N-S axis. More than 15000 people were killed.

-1999-October:A paper about amateur radio emergency communications was presented at a NATO -Civil Emergency Planning Meeting.

-1999-October: Upon request, a report was presented to the Special Investigation Committee of the Turkish Parliament. The TRAC-Report became one of the six Reference Sources of the final Committee-Report.

-1999-November,12th : In the evening hours a very strong tremor was felt. Within 15 minutes, before even the information about the epicenter and strength of the earthquake was released by the observatory, the problem was detected by TRAC-Sakaya Subsidiary. One member hasted to the city of Duzce-the mainly affected location- and got in touch with the mayor, another one hasted to the Governor of Sakarya. That way coordination between two neighbouring districts started immediately. As all amateurs in the region were experienced and prepared, information flow started very quickly.

Telephone lines (including GSM) broke down almost instantly, as the public was in a high degree of panic. This caused a overload which resulted in the breakdown.

Istanbul EM could communicate with the region easily via a TRAC-Repeater. Istanbul EM relayed all informations to Ankara and other destinations via the TRAC- HF Network.

The Minister of Interior arrived at Istanbul EM within 30 minutes and was briefed by the Governor at the TRAC-Communications Room.

The actions performed by TRAC during this event were similar to the Earthquake of August 17.

But this time we focussed more on a serious problem which caused a lot of headache in the past: The co-ordination between the incoming foreign relief groups and the local EM's.

We deployed personnel to the Airport, prepared a questionnary form together with UNDP, added a frequency list for the area which were solely amateur frequencies. Knowing that most of the groups would not have any idea about their frequencies we deployed a frequency counter as well.

From 232 groups only 8 had amateurs among them. Further 10 of them had programming tools for their radios, the rest of them radios with different frequencies varying from low-band VHF to high-band UHF or CB. Co-operation with amateurs was no problem, most of the groups with programming tools were setting up their frequencies to our local frequencies, but there was a great problem with all the others.

All the informations were relayed to the TRAC-Teams at the disaster site. As they were in liaison with the local EM's, a much higher degree of co-ordination was established. British Civil Defence reported that this action of ours has been the first of it's kind experienced in the last 30 years of international relief activities.

2000-Signing various Memoranda of Understandings: The earthquakes of 1999 showed the importance of a well-trained and prepared Emergency Management . It further demonstrated to all relevant parties the crucial importance of amateur radio emergency communication service. As reported earlier, we were seeking co-operation with various agencies since a long time; but as "daily routines" were overwhelming we did not notice any response-till the worst case happened.

We signed Memoranda of Understandings with the Turkish Emergency Management Agency, The Turkish Red Crescent and the Ankara Office of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Text of these MoU's are attached at the Annex.

A further MoU was signed with the Istanbul Ambulance Unit of the Ministry of Health and the Izmit (Kocaeli) Fire Department.

2000-Field operations: Communication aid had to be given in two moderate earthquakes.

2000-Installation of Emergency Operation Centers (EOC) in some provinces: After the devastating earthquakes of 1999, the government started to set up EOC's. TRAC facilities were incorporated to those. That way a much more efficient co-operation was made possible. Pictures of some TRAC EOC facilities can be found at the Annex.

At that point a courtesy of ICOM should be mentioned. 5 basic HF Sets were donated to TRAC by ICOM-Japan as a contribution to the efforts for emergency communications. 4 of them were deployed to various TRAC-Subsidiaries in highly endangered or strategically important areas. One remained in Istanbul .

A further courtesy to be mentioned was made by UN-OCHA. A special PACTOR-Set was donated to TRAC by OCHA. That way TRAC became incorporated to the global UN Emergency Network. The system is installed in the TRAC Working Area within the Istanbul Emergency Operation Center.

In some other EOC's surplus radios or member-donations were utilized.

For the most EOC's or Civil Defence locations, TRAC is the main long-distance communications resource in case of emergencies.

2000-Training of Volunteers: The devastating incidents of 1999 made the population aware of the big threat. A lot of community (neighbourhood) response teams, SAR-Teams and other volunteer organizations were initiated. In this awakening period, all other provisions of the Civil Defence Law started to be implemented for the first time ever; industrial facilities with more than 200 employees organized response teams which were trained by the Civil Defence in basic SAR techniques.

As for all those the major concern was emergency communications, TRAC offered amateur radio courses. A remarkable number of SAR personnel was trained and obtained their amateur radio licences.

This became a continued program. It will be followed by a special emergency communications training and certification program.

2000-Publications: Papers were presented in some important workshops for emergency preparedness.

2001-Training for Government Agencies: As government agencies are-opposite to amateur radio- generally not prepared for the worst-case-scenario in terms of radio communications (problems with repeaters or other technical problems) ,TRAC started a training program suited for these. It's rather a "basic radio communications training" which also aims to improve the traffic handling.
The first implementation was made at the Istanbul Ambulance Unit, resulting in a remarkably better radio communications performance. This program will be applied by all TRAC-Subsidiaries after the pending MoU with the Ministry of Health has been signed .

2001-Training of Red Crescent Personnel: In the framework of the MoU, communications personnel of TRC were trained by TRAC-Ankara and became licensed amateurs.

2001-Participation into the "Joint Greek-Turkish Sudden Disaster Response Unit (JET-SDRU)": TRAC had started already a brainstorm in 1998 with the Greek Amateur Radio Society RAAG and the Bulgarian Amateur Radio Society BFRA in order to start joint preparedness for the worst case scenarios in emergencies. As these neighbouring countries are prone to the same sort of seismological threats, it was obvious that the primary "first aid" would be obtained from each other.

This idea arose again when the governments of Greece and Turkey agreed in setting up a joint response mechanism after Athens was hit by a severe earthquake in 1999 and Turkey was one of the first responders. On the other hand, Greece had been always one of the first substantial foreign responders after earthquakes in Turkey. Finally, RAAG and TRAC became official part of this newly established mechanism which will be part of the UN-OCHA global response system.

Amateur radio proved to be the easiest solution for multilateral emergency communications needs once again.

This is also another example which shows the importance of the Tampere-Convention. As Greece has limited the application of CEPT T/R 61-01 to EC Countries, the only solution for permitting amateurs from Turkey to operate in the framework of JET-SDRU will be Tampere. On the other hand we sincerely hope that the Greek government will overwiev and revise its policy in terms of T/R 61-01.

2001-2002- Design of a countrywide emergency communications system: As HF communications can be disrupted by solar activities, TRAC started efforts to shift emergency communications to the VHF,UHF and SHF spectrum primarily. At present, repaters are linked in case of emergencies. But for the long term, the installation of a countrywide APRS -Network and a High-Speed Packet Network along the Northern Anatolian Fault Line is intended. As sponsors for these projects could obtained, most likely the systems will be operative this year. The only problem to be solved is the SHF Frequency Allocation on the 23 cm Band. Negotiations with the Turkish Telecommunications Authority are held at present on that matter. One of our partners in this project is the National Research Center (TUBITAK).

Thanks to the International Solidarity and Fraternity among Amateurs, wide technical support from German Amateurs was obtained for the High-Speed Packet Network.

Due to this fact and the mobilization of TRAC-Members, this highly important system will be installed with a very low budget (approximately 130.000.-USD). These intended infrastructures will serve almost 90% of the population in case of emergencies. This remarkable cost/service factor is a typical asset of amateur radio. If a similar system would be installed by the government and at a commercial platform it would have required a budget in the vicinity of Millions of USD-not including the yearly costs for the required skilled personnel, which is free in the case amateur radio emergency communications.

The present situation: TRAC has build up a countrywide volunteer emergency communications structure which incorporates 47 Subsidiaries spread to all parts of the country. Almost 60% of the population can be served in the case of emergencies. The aid received in the period of 1994-2002 has been in the vicinity of 20.000.- USD,including the donated radios. This support was converted to a public available technical infrastructure in the value of 1 Million USD-simply by converting surplus radios to repeaters and similar facilities.

The service provided on the other hand, has the aquivalent value of 27 Millions of USD per year. This amount is the value of the salary costs for skilled and equipped personnel which had to be paid if a similar infrastructure would be made available by the government.

The task: Being prepared to all emergencies by developping a national pool of well-trained and motivated amateur radio operators and by assisting public and volunteer agencies in their efforts to obtain a reliable emergency communications setup. Another task is to guide the young population to the field of radio communications and to raise the overall level of knowledge in the fields of electronics and communications.

Conclusion:
It's obvious that the Amateur Radio Service has proven its crucial role in many cases of emergency. This report contains cases experienced in Turkey. But its widely known that in many other countries Amateur Radio has played this important role as well. This is even true for the United States of America, which is often thought to have sufficient professional services.

Amateur Radio is an economical , reliable and quick solution for emergency communications needs globally. It's a fact that the frequency spectrum which was allocated to this service saves many lives. Therefore, it has to be told that all these allocations are essential and serve to a truly primary human need.

The most sophisticated and "modern" future technologies will not change this fact. It has to be considered that up to 90% of relief work is done by volunteers. Therefore every effort should be done to support amateur radio and to raise the liaison between relief agencies and national amateur radio societies. This will be to the benefit of all.

These facts should be also taken into consideration when it comes to the point of harmonizing the 7 MHz-Band. This band is a very important amateur radio resource in terms of emergency communications. Therefore everything has to be done to widen this amateur radio allocation to the 300 kHz required to face the needed .