YRM/RRL Director – Donald DeRiggs (J88CD)

The event is hosted by the Youlou Radio Movement, formerly the Rainbow Radio League and will take place on Sunday May 19, 2024 from 03:00 AM to 06:00 AM EST.

The club’s Director Donald De Riggs, J88CD, says the event “will be a communications exercise designed to test the readiness of our members including the deployment of our field equipment …ensuring that our base and field equipment [are] operational,” He noted that “the activity will be conducted via HF and VHF radio and will also involve radio amateurs from neighboring territories.”

While the 3:00AM start time may seem a bit onerous, De Riggs says “it is also designed to psychologically/mentally prepare our volunteers for operation at any time of the day or night.”

One of the clubs founding members and director of IT, Sean Patterson, J88CU, is spearheading a new initiative to the exercise this year. He is coordinating a Winlink message sending exercise to involve regional amateur radio operations and also those in the wider diaspora. Patterson says that two random messages, at undisclosed times will be dispatched via Winlink. He is encouraging operators to respond to those messages as soon as they are received so that the club can assess the response times and feasibility of this method. Regional hams are already part of a Winlink Net which is held every Wednesday, coordinated by Frans van Santbrink, J69DS, from the island of St. Lucia.

The club is also hoping to get the full support and participation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ National Emergency Management Organization, NEMO.

According to Michael Mann Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science and director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania an unprecedented 33 named tropical cyclones, potentially ranging between 27 and 39 is forecasted for the 2024 hurricane season. Mann’s prediction is published in an article titled 2024 Tropical Cyclone Prediction on the University’s website.

Mann says “we’ve seen many hyperactive seasons over the past decade, and in just about all cases, like our prediction for this year, the activity is substantially driven by ever-warmer conditions in the tropical Atlantic tied to large-scale warming.”

The United States based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, will issue its outlook for the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season during a news conference on Thursday, May 23 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC and virtually.