LandSAR volunteers operate in suburban, urban, wilderness and rural areas including regional and forest parks, shorelines and caves. There are over 3,500 trained search and rescue volunteers who are members of 62 local groups covering the length and breadth of New Zealand. These unpaid professionals offer their specialist search and rescue skills free to the public 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via the New Zealand Police and the Rescue Coordination Centre.
Over the course of any year, LandSAR Oxford volunteers are involved in dozens of emergency call-outs from the Rural Canterbury plains, through the foothills and forest parks to the mountains and valleys of Arthurs Pass National Park. In the backcountry and wilderness environments that Oxford SAR teams operate in, effective and reliable communications are essential. The satellite equipment, services and expertise provided by Woi, and powered by Kacific, has provided Oxford SAR with the ability to effectively manage our SARTrack management systems and communications at the location of each search, regardless of where this happens to be. Woi’s broadband, powered by Kacific’s high-throughput Kacific1 satellite, is able to deliver internet bandwidth at high speeds. And because the signal from Kacific1 covers the entire New Zealand, LandSAR Oxford volunteers can get online no matter how deep in the wilderness the rescure operations go or how remote the backcountry is.
When search operations stretch beyond the initial response period, Woi’s equipment allow Oxford SAR to contact and deploy new staff via their Volunteer Rescue system. The partnership with Woi has provided Oxford SAR with the ability to communicate via WIFI and by satellite phone when we are in an area that has no physical cell phone coverage.
Most importantly, the Woi system also links with Oxford SAR existing tracking systems, so that they are able to know exactly where their teams are at all times when they are in the field. This not only improves the safety of the team members significantly, but also provides team members the opportunity to communicate with their families, which has traditionally been very difficult on longer duration operations.
LandSAR Oxford is incredibly thankful to Woi for donating a fully portable satellite communications base station and field equipment to the Oxford group.
