In late May 2016 a shipment of equipment from Barrett Communications was delivered to the Caribbean to support emergency and disaster preparedness operations for the forthcoming hurricane season.
The shipment was sent to the island group of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, located in the Caribbean Sea, between Saint Lucia and Grenada. Located within “the hurricane belt” and with the 2016 season soon to commence, the shipment was greatly anticipated.
The donation shipment was the eventual result of an article written by The Rainbow Radio League's (RRL) Director, Donald De Riggs, in an American radio communications publication.
RRL is a non-profit volunteer organisation with emergency communications as its specialty. Their requirement in terms of communications was for emergency and disaster preparedness radio equipment that was reliable, inexpensive to run and easy to operate on an ongoing basis. Recognising that the requirement reflected Barrett's range of equipment and services the company decided to make contact with Riggs with a view to offering some assistance to RRL.
A range of ex-demonstration High Frequency (HF) and Very High Frequency (VHF) radio communications equipment was dispatched to RRL. The agreement includes two Barrett 2050 HF transceivers, one in base station and the other in vehicle configuration, two 2090 HF Manpacks, four PRC-2090 HF base stations, three PRC-2080 VHF handheld transceivers and one PRC-2082 VHF base station.
To allow for interoperability between the HF and VHF networks a Barrett HF-VHF Cross Gate was also supplied, the VHF will allow for 'line of sight' communications during an incident or event and the HF will allow for communications back to the RRL headquarters or another base station in the island chain. The majority of the HF equipment has been earmarked for the Grenadines which has the greatest need for emergency communications equipment.
Due to the remoteness of the Island country, the response time by regional and international response agencies, especially if the event is catastrophic, is critical. The HF systems will replace salt damaged equipment at Clifton Health Center in Union Island, another in Mayreau, Canouan and the other at Paget farm Bequia.
In St. Vincent another will be placed at Fancy and the other at RRL HQ in Kingstown. The new equipment will be installed over the next few months. Barrett will provide further updates of RRL's progress in the future as they roll out their emergency radio communications network.