AREC at community events
Amateur Radio Emergency Communications “AREC” the public service arm of the New Zealand Association of Radio Transmitters (NZART) formed by members who are individually licensed amateur radio operators.
Welcome to AREC New Zealand
Welcome to Amateur Radio Emergency Communications “AREC”. AREC is the public service arm of the New Zealand Association of Radio Transmitters (NZART) formed by members who are primarily individually licensed amateur radio operators. AREC provides skilled Volunteers enabling essential communications to support search and rescue, disaster response, and our community.
AREC.site
AREC’s legacy website and the technical information it contained is still available for a period of time at www.arec.site
Our Services

Communications
AREC provides a range of communications services covering the provision of highly trained, experience Volunteer radio operators delivering vital messaging services for search and rescue, civil emergencies and community events.

Training & Advice
AREC delivers high quality education, training and assessment of AREC volunteers and other partner organizations. Our volunteers deliver advice and guidance utilizing their extensive technical and operational knowledge.

Infrastructure & Equipment
AREC endeavours to provide and maintain suitable radio and communications technology equipment and infrastructure to enable our volunteers to provide a highly capable and responsive emergency communication service.

Volunteers
AREC’s 450 fully equipped Volunteers provide communications services for civil emergencies, search and rescue and community events.
264
Events attended by AREC + 126 SAR events
47
AREC groups
nationwide
375
AREC volunteers
8
AREC partners
(NZSAR, RCC, Police, LandSAR,)
Latest News
Southland AREC
Wet day at Dip Flat
long standing AREC members being recognised
Keeping in touch when it counts
Join the adventure!
Join AREC as a volunteer
You will join a group and receive training to provide essential communications to support Search & Rescue, Disaster Response, and our community.




Sponsors, Associates & Partners












AREC recently supported Moeraki Marae Emergency Response Group with training on their comms equipment.
The Marae received a FIRST72 Emergency POD (EPOD) through the Ngāi Tahu iwi, as part of an initiative to form Marae Emergency Response Groups, to support the community during significant events.
The hour-long training covered radio procedures, tuition on Star Link installation, information on each piece of equipment they had, along with some insight around the situations where the equipment would normally be used.
With some pretty scary weather events happening around the country, it's important that communities around Aotearoa are prepared.
Do you know any communities who need our help understanding radio comms equipment? Tag them below as we would love to help 👇
#emergencyresponse ##EmergencyPreparedness #radiocommunication
... See MoreSee Less


Always a pleasure to support with Radio comms, thanks for having us along West Coast Emergency Management 👍 ... See MoreSee Less




She’s beauty, she’s grace, she’s keeping comms in place! 🚙
Check out our new @toyota_nz Hilux 4wd, ready to deploy with equipment and volunteers for significant search and rescue and CDEM incidents.
💛You can't miss us! - thanks to @speedysignsnz
#ToyotaNZ #hilux #EmergencyPreparedness #emergencycommunications
... See MoreSee Less

A few of our team joined the @landsarnz Hikuai SAREX recently, supporting with comms, radio installation and repeater set-up.
We had a good learning moment when a server connection was lost, and had to go back to manual message logs with a runner! Always good to be kept on our toes during an exercise (quite literally on this occasion!)
Thanks to the volunteers and partner organisations who made this training exercise a success! Your dedication is what keeps our communities safe 👍
#EmergencyPreparedness #emergencyresponse #radiocommunication
... See MoreSee Less

