Historical:
In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017, SBDR volunteers manned the radio room of the American Red Cross in San Juan for four weeks following the departure of ARRL's "Force of Fifty," using the special event call sign K1M.
The station is shown in the first photograph. From left to right, two stacked VHF/UHF dual-band radios, a laptop running the only APRS beacon station on the island at the moment due to power outages, several handheld V/U radios, and an HF stack consisting of a Pactor IV modem, antenna tuner, IC-7300, and an IC-7200 that had been used for weeks until the 7300 arrived. The Red Cross commercial band radio is behind the printer.
Current:
On September 5, 2026, a team of SBDR and Send Relief volunteers from Puerto Rico came to Arkansas to provide breakout session training in Spanish. A Communications session was held, with several volunteers learning about emergency communications in general and on the island.
We look forward to strengthening emergency communications effort on the island, and to working with our brothers to prepare to serve in times of need. We also hope to have some of the Spanish-language training materials that were used at this session available on the website in the near future.
