VoIP Hurricane Net Activation Situation Report #2 – Major Hurricane Melissa Day-1/Day-2 Operations & Upcoming Day-3 Wednesday 10/29/25 Operations
Hello to all…
**VoIP Hurricane Net shifting to a monitor/listen only mode for the overnight hours Tuesday Evening with Major Hurricane Melissa expected to approach Eastern Cuba during the late overnight hours into Wednesday Morning and then into the Bahamas later Wednesday. The VoIP Hurricane Net will reactivate at or before 7 AM EDT Wednesday Morning supporting, WX4NHC, the Amateur Radio Station at the National Hurricane Center Operations.**
**Melissa caused catastrophic damage in Jamaica with roofs off parts of 5 hospitals, hotel roof damage, roof damage to homes and numerous trees and wires down. Significant damage was confirmed at the Montego Bay Jamaica Airport. Storm Surge flooding in Southwest Jamaica was also significant along with significant to catastrophic inland river/stream flooding from heavy rainfall. At least one Amateur Radio Operator lost his antenna tower due to the catastrophic damaging winds of Melissa**
**A reminder that the Saturday 11/1/25 VoIP Hurricane Prep Net is Cancelled due to extended VoIP Hurricane Net Activation Operations**
During Tuesday, the full brunt of Category-5 Major Hurricane Melissa was felt over Jamaica. Melissa caused catastrophic damage in Jamaica with roofs off parts of 5 hospitals, hotel roof damage, roof damage to homes and numerous trees and wires down. Significant damage was confirmed at the Montego Bay Jamaica Airport. Storm Surge flooding in Southwest Jamaica was also significant along with significant to catastrophic inland river/stream flooding from heavy rainfall. At least one Amateur Radio Operator lost his antenna tower due to the catastrophic damaging winds of Melissa. Many of the weather stations that were online Tuesday Morning were no longer reporting but some reports were sent in before they went down. We also received one very high-end report confirming category 5 winds that we are working to validate from an Amateur Radio Operator, the same one that lost their tower. We are appreciative to a number of Hams who relayed reports from Jamaican News Radio, Amateur Radio HF and other outlets today. This is a way Amateur Radio Operators that are not in the affected area and can help relay reports from within the affected area. Special thanks to AE4WX-Mark, KC5FM-Lloyd and KK7AHR-George for their robust net control support today. Over 45 webform reports were sent with many of the reports containing multiple reports via social media, direct Amateur Radio Jamaican Station reports and relayed reports from Amateur Radio Operators outside of the affected area with contacts in the affected area. The report viewer can be seen here:
https://www.voipwx.net/qilan/nhcwx/list_VOIP_records1?auth=OK
The situation report from Monday is listed below followed by the activation plans for Wednesday.
During Monday, Jamaica experienced lower end tropical storm force conditions due to the slow speed of Melissa to the south and southeast of the island. Wind Gusts of 40-50 MPH were common along with heavy rainfall. These conditions downed trees and power lines and caused flooding with numerous road closures due to flooding, trees and wires down and even a few sinkholes from heavy rainfall. Earlier in the afternoon, Jamaica had 51,000 customers of 700,000 without power but some power was able to be restored due to Melissa’s slower movement such that about 21,000 were without power as of approximately 11 PM EDT this evening. Special thanks to K2DCD-Dennis, KC5FM-Lloyd, AE4WX-Mark and KK7AHR-George for their support of Net Control Operations for the net. A total of 40 reports were sent into the National Hurricane Center were sent in via various sources that included online weather stations and social media between Sunday Afternoon through Monday Evening. Our report viewer below shows the reports submitted:
The rest of this update is from the activation notice with the headline updates above and updates to some of the video streaming services provided by N0VZC-Mike Norrbom:
Here are the VoIP Hurricane Net Plans for Major Hurricane Melissa as of Tuesday Evening 1140 PM EDT:
VoIP Hurricane Net shifting to a monitor/listen only mode for the overnight hours Tuesday Evening with Major Hurricane Melissa expected to approach Eastern Cuba during the late overnight hours into Wednesday Morning and then into the Bahamas later Wednesday. The VoIP Hurricane Net will reactivate at or before 7 AM EDT Wednesday Morning supporting, WX4NHC, the Amateur Radio Station at the National Hurricane Center Operations.
We ask any and all Amateur Radio Operators who may know of Amateur Radio or non-Amateur Radio Operators in the affected area of Eastern Cuba into the Bahamas and Turks & Caicos Islands to give any and all reports from their area. In addition, any folks that can monitor online weather stations, reliable social media sources for reports to get to our net team would be helpful and then our team can discern the data that gets sent to WX4NHC, the Amateur Radio Station at the National Hurricane Center.
Any pictures or videos of wind damage, river/stream/urban/storm surge flooding etc. can be sent to our voipwxnet Facebook and Twitter feeds or the following email address: pics@nsradio.org and credit will be given to the Amateur Radio Operator, weather spotter or individual that took the photos and media and be shared with the Amateur Radio team at the National Hurricane Center and other agencies and outlets.
Advisories on Melissa can be seen off of the Atlantic Tropical Products menu selection on the voipwxnet web site, via our Facebook and Twitter feeds, and off the National Hurricane Center web site via the following link:
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov
Reports as obtained via the VoIP Hurricane Net from Amateur Radio Operators in the affected area, relays from the affected area or from APRS/CWOP Weather Station feeds and other social media outlets can be found at the following link:
https://www.voipwx.net/qilan/nhcwx/list_VOIP_records1?auth=OK
APRS, Winlink, AllStar, Hams Over IP and other resources that can be monitored are as follows:
APRS kc5fm-9
Winlink KC5FM
Allstar 28848
Echolink KC5FM-R 906281
Hams Over IP 15154
Amateur Wire 30415154
DMR TGIF 31207
P25 31207
DSTAR XLXOKL C
Yaesu Fusion 31207
M17-SUN module A
Stations outside the affected area that do not have relays into the affected area who would like to listen into the VoIP Hurricane Net can use any of the following systems for listen-only purposes and can connect on either Echolink or IRLP:
*NEW-ENG3* Echolink conference node: 9123/IRLP 9123
*SKY_GATE* Echolink conference node: 868981/IRLP 9252
*KC4QLP-C* Echolink conference node: 290251
*ARERT* Echolink conference node: 902723 (Also bridged to Allstar on Node 273660 and on the YCS311 C4FM Server at http://c4fm.mntrbo.net ID:74)
*FLORIDA* Echolink conference node: 3082
These three streaming audio feeds should be available. Those streaming audio feeds are as follows:
Streaming feed 1: http://74.208.24.77:8000 Provided by KC4QLP-Bob Carter
Streaming feed 2: http://radio.arert.net:8000/ARERT -Provided by the ARERT conference owners and sysops
Streaming feed 3: https://www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/38868 -Provided by the ARERT conference owners and sysops
Video streams will be provided by ARERT if they find video feeds from the affected area and will have audio from the hurricane net on it. Those streams are below:
Video stream feed: https://www.liveweatherusa.com/
Special thanks to N0VZC-Mike Norrbom and the ARERT sysops for their support of these feeds.
Please note that there could be additional listen only nodes and streaming feeds. If time allows, this info will be updated via the voipwxnet web site and social media feeds.
A reminder that the VoIP Hurricane Prep Net for Saturday Evening 11/1/25 has been canceled. The next VoIP Hurricane Prep Net will be Saturday Evening 11/8/25 unless a hurricane net activation is required.
The VoIP Hurricane Net Management team continues to closely watch Major Hurricane Melissa. Thanks to all for their continued support of the VoIP Hurricane Net!
73,Rob-KD1CY.
Director of Operations for the VoIP Hurricane Net