AmRRON is proudly supporting Grindstone Ministries by providing emergency communications in remote and grid down locations in response to the devastation from Hurricane Helene.

Last weekend AmRRON was contacted by Grindstone Ministries announcing the deployment of disaster response teams.  After their on-site assessment in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Tennessee along the North Carolina border, they realized that there were absolutely no conventional communications available to many communities and areas in which their teams would be operating.

All week we have been feverishly working to deploy volunteer AmRRON operators into the area to support disaster relief and rescue efforts from their FOB (Forward Operating Base) in eastern Tennessee.

We have operators on site, and more inbound, and are coordinating between the operations leadership at the FOB and AmRRON operations planners to provide communications support by deployed operators and regional support team operators on a rotational basis.  Radio operators are deploying, or planning to deploy, for three to ten day rotations.

AmRRON operators will be providing unconventional communications at RTOs attached to work/rescue/relief teams traveling into remote locations under the most austere conditions — areas which have absolutely no working infrastructure or conventional communications, and in the rugged mountainous terrain, often times cannot directly reach a repeater.

Many repeaters are also off line for a variety of reasons.  This requires HF NVIS communications and highly skilled and experienced radio operators who can send SITREPs, MEDEVAC requests, emails and phone texts from the middle of nowhere.  This is vitally important as many of the crews are doing dangerous chainsaw work, heavy equipment work, and other tasks which can place the work crew members in grave danger.

AmRRON operators are deploying to provide a lifeline… a communications link to the outside world, when nothing else works.

In some remote, steep, and deep mountainous areas, even Starlink does not work due to the blocking of line-of-sight paths to satellites.  Sometimes, only radio will get the job done.

However, there are also other duties that are necessary and don’t require as much skill and experience.  Even if you’re only a licensed ham Technician, or only have a GMRS license, there’s something for everyone!  Radio operators are needed to man radios at the FOB, at shelters, and disaster relief distribution facilities.

Grindstone Ministries is planning for at least a 30 to 90 day disaster relief operation.  Their volunteers are signing up on a rotating basis.  AmRRON is looking for members who are able to volunteer to deploy for a rotation of three to ten days to provide continuous communications support to Grindstone.

If you are a radio operator, and you’re a currently active AmRRON member, and you’re interested in deploying with the AmRRON team, email: johnjacob at amrron.com

Type ‘Deployment’ in the Subject line.

In the email, include:

  • Your AmRRON Call Sign
  • Your state
  • Membership status:  AmRRON or AmRRON Corps
  • Dates of availability
  • How many days you are willing/able to deploy (3 day — 10 days — or?)
  • License level

We will follow up with you in the next 48 hours with a brief operator capabilities survey and begin the process of scheduling you into one of the upcoming rotations.

To learn more about Grindstone Ministries’ disaster response deployment, visit:

https://grindstoneministries.com/pages/deployment-information-for-helene