Slashdot Mirror
Ham Radio Served as Main Link to Disaster Area
SonicSpike writes "A University of Central Florida ham radio operator K4VUD (and founder
of their film program) was caught in Port
Blair during the earthquake and following tsunami! He and a team of other ham radio operators arrived in the Andaman
and Nicobar Islands to setup the region's
first ham station 2 weeks prior to the disaster. Once they realized what
happened they immediately began transmitting for 20 straight hours using car batteries as a power source. Most cellular and land-line communication was down. His team became the main link to the rest of the world from the region."
Coincidentally, when I was home for the holidays I saw an article about this in the Orlando Sentinel:
/ or l-asectsunamiham01010105jan01,1,2331864.story
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/nationworld
It needs a free reg, or bugmenot.com
It's really amazing what they did. Here's a snippet from the article:
And with most telephone lines down and cell phones scarce, the ham-radio club's efforts proved invaluable as the scope of the disaster increased day after day.
The first messages were to let people on the Indian mainland know that those on the island were safe and unharmed.
A young waiter at Harpole's hotel asked them to get word to his mother in Hyderabad, India, that he was alive and well.
"We found a ham-radio operator on the mainland, gave the mother's telephone number," Harpole said. Within five minutes a ham operator in Hyderabad called the waiter's mother and relayed the message.
"He told us the mother was crying with joy," he said.
Harpole's group cheered and clapped. Word spread quickly across the island, and their work went on for hours and hours.
When Indian government officials learned of the hamradio operators, they relayed messages for official requests for medicines, water and blankets. Several of the radio operators headed south to Nicobar.
Amateur rado "hasn't advanced" in the last 10 years? Sorry, but when I look at the new, yet afforable HF radios with dual DSP, or send GPS data through a sat. link, bounce microwaves off mountain peaks, or use pure digital VHF communication (Which is now possible and commercially available), I can't help but think you haven't seen an issue of QST since 1995. The hobby has matured, and more than kept [ace with changing technology. Rich de KY6O
I hate to have to ruin my karma like this, but please refrain from lumping "HAM" operators with the CB groups. We frankly don't like that. Although, most "HAM" (amateur) operators usually train for stuff like this just incase we actually are needed. They have quite a few groups/classes that you can do to help learn where you fit in the 'disaster' picture.
Although, I must admit, you at least nailed the point on the head with your second thought you put down. Amateur Radio operators don't just get their license to chit-chat about stuff. Most of us are here for when we're needed.
Case in point: The recent streak of Hurricanes out around Florida. The Amateur Radio community had spotters in the field the entire time relaying information to the National Weather Service and the Hurricane Watch Center.
A good resource for those of you interested in getting your Amateur Radio Service license is:
http://www.arrl.org (Amateur Radio Relay League)
It's considered the "voice" of the community and has quite a bit of news on there.
Harm
Actually, this is not really media contrived or a matter of opportunity knocking. I am part of the University of central Florida Amateur Radio Club (The Moderator can verify this if desired, I do not feel like giving out my email address to thousands).
Dr. Harpole (K4VUD) was actually part of what they called a DXpedition. Where he had gone , there had never in history been an officially sanctioned amateur radio station before. It was mere coincidence that he had been there 2 weeks prior that special permission had been granted for the radio operators to operate there. The ARRL has more on the DXpedition gone into emergency mode
Also, It should be noted that Dr. Harpole was not the only radio operator there. We have been keeping a series of links on this, however, which are available on the UCF Amateur Radio Club's wiki.
I would like to point out that I do not typically reply to Slashdot posts, however, this is actually something of which I am somewhat a part, and figure I should set things straight. (despite the fact people will still continute to put up off the wall posts on the subject anyway)