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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."
Opportunity knocks on people's door in the most bizarre way. Yesterday they are just some university radio folks, today they are globally recognized.
Wow what a great article! It was nice to read more about HAM radio operators! This is a good way to bring HAM radio into the limelight again! I'm sure they saved many lives!
(The submitter and I just had three shots of espresso!)
See, if you take out the exclamation points, it doesn't sound so insincere.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Well, I guess this is an "I told you so" from those who opposed BPL for ham-interference reasons. ... being able to read slashdot faster on BroadBand, or the lives of innocent little children? Easy enough question, to those of you who aren't terminally selfish.
What do you care more for
I think the Hams win this one.
Sometimes just making money isn't the best thing.
73 - KL1SA
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Two years ago, I was in Brazil when they had a huge flood. The only communication out was radio. Fortunately, I had my Icom 706 and was able to establish a CW link through an AO satellite.
They are not kosher.
To my knowledge, amateur radio provides the only free-as-in-speech global communication network that can operate completely independent of any grid. You can even run computer networks on it, unlike the cell system.
Okay... ham radio... wow... we should all be impressed... how about using said car batteries and other forms of power to power the damned cell sites... much more useful... not everyone has a ham radio at their disposal... but I'm sure you'd find a cell phone, even in poverty stricken areas within a 5 kilometre radius...
Let's see, maybe because:
1. They actually *HAD* a ham radio, not a cellphone tower.
2. I doubt if they had found a cellphone tower that they would just happen to have a power converter suitable to running it off of their car batteries. (And if they did, I doubt the batteries would last long supporting that dynamo.)
3. A back up generator would have been much more suitable to running something like a cell tower.
4. Can you say "cellular network"? Powering up one cell tower isn't going to do you diddly squat if the other cell towers and phonelines are down.
Right.... Have you ever seen a backup power supply for a single cell tower? It is a lot more than a couple of car batteries. But assuming you had a powered cell tower, what then? No powered land lines to connect to just yet.
When disaster strikes, ham radio is often the only reliable means of communication into and out of the affected area.
LinuxGeek, KI4CJJ
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
Ham radio was and is useful when natural disasters happens, this is something the rest of the people knows only when it's too late.
20hrs stright thats nuts let all pitch in and get them some bawls so they can go another few days non-stop.
Well, that's the beauty of ham radio. You can power one site and send messages thousands of miles away with a single tower and a car battery. To power all the cell towers, you'd need significantly more power, with significantly more towers and then you have to figure out how to send the signals off island. Plus you have to actually charge the cell phones. I don't think areas of Aceh had or are going to have electricity for a very, very long time.
A family friend is a member of ARES, a network of ham radio operators who spring into action when the power goes off and cellular is a distant memory. These guys take their (volunteer) positions pretty seriously, and have acted a few times in the past decade to get news around quickly when more conventional methods aren't working.
Also, this is the Andaman and Nicobar islands. Some of these islands are being protected by India because they have stone age cultures untouched by modern culture. I would think electricity is pretty sparse, let alone cell phones.
So yes, Ham radio, Wow. Think of them as the Amish of 21th century communications. When the power grid collapses, they're the ones who will be there to save your ass.
Many of these islands haven't been contacted yet, even one week later. This is an excellent scenario for Ham Radio use. Let's hope that along with new seismic bouys they can dot the Indian Ocean with emergency Ham Radio systems.
Just be thankful the world is reacting at all I say. If this had not have been a natural disaster, but rather another genocide or brutal regime killing people, the world would still be sitting on its collective hands watching the death toll rise. Natural disasters are easy to deal with. No messy issues with who is the "good guy" and who is the "bad guy", just throw money at it to prove how much you care.
Sunday's Washington Post had an article on another Ham Radio operator (link - probably requires registration - sorry). A real life, very public example of why ham radio is important.
Sleep is for the Weak
well this is a feel good story and all, but I always wonder -- how exactly are these amateur radio operators helping in more than an anecdotal way during disasters? I mean, is it like they're ferrying critical rescue and operations traffic? I have a feeling not, because to do that, both they and the operators on the other side would have to be tied in to whatever government or agency is reaching out to help. And to have that be the case, there would have to be serious pre-disaster networks and agreements set up.
I mean, this is similar to the relief organizations in the area now -- they keep telling regular people not to volunteer to fly to the region and help out, because what they really want are people who know what they're doing and part of the organization already, and can be deployed. A single ham radio operator on his/her own is not going to be that useful.
So maybe I'm not really familiar with the true value of ham radio operators in situations like this -- can anyone give a more informed picture? Do they just serve to carry random individual messages of "I'm ok", until the military/relief authorities arrive and set up a real command communications network?
thanks for the info.
Radio travels at the speed of light. Ships and helicopters travel at the speed of bureaucracy.
Next question.
2. Maybe the aussies actually had to load stuff on the ships. You know...stuff that people might need, like medical supplies, water, blankets. Does no good to send empty ships.
3. It takes quite a while for a carrier battle group (the Abraham Lincoln) to steam several thousand miles. Unless you know of another way to get helicopters and 15,000 navy people across a few thousand miles of open ocean.
It seems to me you're bitching just to be bitching.
If they had communications from the disaster, why did it take the international community a week to react.
You think there are cargo ships and helicopters loaded up 24/7 with crews, appropriate supplies and doctors just waiting for a disaster to strike?
You can't take the sky from me...
I wonder if any of these operators were able to contact other costal cities before the wave hit there. I read somewhere that there was somehting like a 2 hour lag between the time the first and last places were hit. Think that would even be enough time to accomplish anything? -Yoweigh
When disaster strikes, ham radio is often the only reliable means of communication into and out of the affected area.
This fact came to mind when I was at school in DC and the Pentagon got hit and they told us not to use the phones unless we absolutely had to, and also when I was in Northern Ohio when that big power failure occurred. I've been meaning to get a ham radio operator's license, and in part it's these emergency situations that have made me decide to at least get licensed for 2 meter. (Not licensed yet, hopefully soon.)
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.
I can't speak about Australia, but for the US helicopters, they are based onboard ships. These ships were making port calls in various Pacific cities. IIRC, the ships were originally bound for the Persian Gulf, but the powers that be decied to send them on a huminatarian mission.
/former Seabee
The ships and helicopters are in the US Navy. They were geared up for a military mission. Once the White House decided to change their mission, they likely had to get provisions for the new mission. Tents, portable generators, etc.
Also, ships are not planes. While they can sail 24/7, they can still only go about 30 knots per hour (approx.). This works out to 720 nautical miles per day. Not very far on a global scale.
So, figure a day or two for the government to get it's head out, another day or to for reprovisioning, and a few more days sailing time, you get a week (approx).
Right, but the side receiving the signals from those in the disaster area aren't in a disaster area. BPL noise interferes with the reception of the emergency traffic.
kc8apf
If they had communications from the disaster, why did it take the international community a week to react. Why did Australia just start sending its ships? Why did the USA helicopters just arrive in Sri Lanka today?
Well do you suppose they just have big old ships full of disaster relief supplies sitting dockside in Australia? Or do you suppose that they have to be fueled, loaded up (once they figure out what types of supplies will be needed) and sent on the way?
Does the United States have helicopters that can make trans-oceanic crossings? Or do you suppose that maybe they have to operate off some sort of vessel? Might that vessel have to travel close enough to where relief supplies are needed so that the helicopters can make round trips to deliver muliple loads of supplies? Or do you expect that just sending the helicopters on a one way trip with a single load of supplies would be sufficient?
Have you stopped to consider that delivering relief supplies to disaster areas actually takes some thought and organization rather than being done in a chaotic, willy-nilly fashion?
Were you aware that even though there has been a huge disaster there are still functioning bureaucracies in the affected areas? Bureaucracies that expect i's to be dotted, t's to be crossed and the proper clearances obtained and the correct forms filled out in triplicate? Were you aware that a licence is required to import medicines into India and that the requirement is not being waved even in light of the huge disaster?
Apparently you haven't really considered these things or else you'd know that relief is actually being provided pretty damn fast on an international scale. If you want to offer any criticism on the tardiness of relief efforts then I suggest you look to the governments a little bit closer to the disaster areas as they are the ones who are properly positioned to provide immediate relief and are therefore the ones who are most responsible for doing so.
my cell phone carrier
Oh well, what the hell
Amateur radio has been used all over the world many many times during disaster. Hurricanes here in the states, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc. They usually go unnoticed, despite being the only source of communication at times. Severe storm warnings are usually issued after HAMs report, via radio, that there is in fact a severe storm (after undergoing training of course). Without us even knowing it they can be a huge part of our daily lives.
Its good to see that such a useful, threatened hobby can show one of its many goodsides to the world by helping out.
73 de kg4gytI miss the smell of a hot soldering iron. And my 3 DSW & SmallWonder Lab radios all worked the first time. *
Rich (* = But my degrees are in English Lit, Rhetoric, and Composition Theory ;)
The only reason the Andaman and Nicobar Islands were so familiar to me was because of ham radio. They're well known for being off limits to ham radio operators. I don't know why -- India's had lots of hams for years on the mainland, but they wouldn't let anyone do those islands. So they remained "rare ones" to the main DX award hunters. Hams have been going on "DXpeditions" to rare countries for years, sometimes financed by DXers looking for the contact and QSL card, and it was in the 1960s that I read some travelogues which mentioned trying and failing to get permission to go to "VU4". What's on those islands anyway? (Or what was?)
It's a fortunate coincidence that Charly finally got permission to operate there only a short time before the tsunami!
A: Very likely. Contrary to your belief, it does not require that Joe Ham have a lot of power or a huge antenna on a tower to communicate with the other side of the world. Nor does it require repeaters on the HF frequencies.
I've been an FCC licensed Ham since 1958 at age 12 and operate only with low power (QRP to us hams) as a challenge precisely because making long distance contacts was too easy with even moderate power (say 100 watts) and modest wire antennas. I've communicated directly with Japan and New Zealand from my car in Illinois using a 4 watt transmitter and a 4 foot antenna on the trunk. If you get up to around 100 Watts and a reasonable wire antenna hung up in the trees in the back yard, you can very easily talk anywhere in the world, given reasonable conditions.
What good is it from the other end? I was with Project Hope in Tunisia in 1969 and provided daily "phone-patched" phone call service to the staff of about 150 people so they could stay in touch with their families back home, without having to pay the $13.00 for the first 3 minutes that the landline cost. It made a huge difference to the people on the hospital ship. In disaster situations, it's orders of magnitude more important. Some of my fellow hams here in the states provided similar communications for military and Antarctic bases for years.
To learn more about Amateur Radio, visit the ARRL website. ARRL Oh, and please, please, do not lump us in with CB folks, as nice as some of them are. Hams are tested and licensed to FCC standards prior to being allowed to put their transmitters on the air.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
Here is an example of how completely innadequate car batteries would be. I have a kiln/studio that until recently, had no power. I used a 12v deep cycle battery to power an inverter, light bulb (high efficiency flourescent), and a mini-itx based computer. If I ran only the light, I would get about 12 hours usuage before my charge fell below 50%. - that's when running nothing but a 40 watt bulb! Turn on the computer and I'd be done in 6 hours.
Electricity is like some magical mystical entity that never runs out as long as you are pulling it off a plug. But when you have to make your own, you realize just how precious it is. My battery must weigh about 50 pounds - lugging that home for charging made me very conservative about my power consumption.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
From my experience, it is almost common for public service to ask the help of Ham radio operators in time of crisis. My local county and state OEM requires them for storm spotting. They might not be the first on the scene, but they will endure and are more flexable than any other form of communications. Talk to fire fighters, police, and other public service personel that served during the wildfires in the west, 9/11 in NYC, and various other disasters. Hams put their lives on hold to help others. The take thousands of dollars of their gear to remote location and provide a service free of charge. All they ask is some respect and bandwidth to "play radio." I think its more important than broadband to remote locations.
What ever happened to the Emergency Broadcasting System during the attacks on September 11? Is it reserved for a tsunami (or other natural disaster)? We get bugged in the middle of all of our programs and yet when we need it it doesn't go off. PS. I happen to attend the University of Central Florida. Go Knights!
This already exists, more or less. Most countries have their own military, with aircraft and helicopters. What you propose would have to be a fleet every 500 miles or so, all the way around the planet. Helicopters are notoriously shortlegged. And quite often, they are the only thing that can get to the affected area. No runways exist, or are left after the disaster.
In this case, such a fleet would have been more useful for evacuation purposes. Seismographs recorded the earthquakes long before the tsunami hit populated areas.
Radio and telephone are far faster. And efforts were made in this case, to little effect.
No transport systems existed in those areas to get people out, but a first response system may have been able to get some out and deliver warnings to others. Enough that perhaps we'd be seeing death rates a tenth (or less) of those we actually have.
How many people can you evacuate via helicopter? 20 each? How many helicopters to evacuate 100,000 people in an hour?
One thing that you do NOT realize ... BPL *WILL* kill effective long range communication. Making it MUCH MORE difficult to help out in a situation like this.
BPL raised the noise floor from being able to hear a weak signal (less than 5 watts) ... to not being able to hear a station booming out with 1500 watts and a highly directional beam.
THIS is why its brought up ... to shed light and attention to it.
Since the FCC has given BPL a green light, we'll have to see how effective Hams are in the future, hopefully, as in the past, Hams will push the technology forward and overcome this roadblock.
PS, yes, I am a Ham ... and the above scenario is sensationalized ... but a possibility
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
The Sally-Ann are there too
http://satern.org/response.html/
Donate to them here:
http://www.salvationarmy.org/
I would like to mention several things:
/.'ers have already posted their sympathy and condolences about this tragic situation. Don't believe me?8 /012024 0&tid=991 /001620 6&tid=99
/. We are about technology and technical things. Discussing communication technology, people who use it, methodology, functionality, and even the human side of it is perfectly within the realm of informative speech.
1) There is no better time to point out the effects of a technology than when it is being used during a crisis! In 5 years (assuming there isn't another crisis of this magnitude) people will largely forget about ham radio and its function especially as an emergency communications network. Now is a GREAT time to launch a PR campaign of awareness and information about the art and hobby of ham radio. (if you notice though I didn't mention BPL in my article because I didn't want it to be the main focus of things). I guarentee you that thousands, if not millions, are exceptionally appreciative of ham radio at the moment.
2) A lot of
Read this:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/2
and this:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/3
3) This is
4) I bet that the doctors and EMTs over in that area are discussing their professional and technical perspectives of the disaster among their collegues. Why? Because they want to learn and exchange information. So are the structual engineers, and the civil engineers, and city planners etc...
No one is saying that this is not a very tragic situation. But with the free exchange of information and objective discussion perhaps better methods of communication or preperation could be devised to help save more lives or maybe to ease the burden next time.
Libertas in infinitum
On the topic of Ham radios during disasters, I would like to bring up something that annoys me to no end...
Why in the hell is it that emergency services aren't equipt to handle anything but a normal day? When some idiots have assault weapons and body armor, police are practically helpless (they got lucky, actually). When there is anything larger than a house fire, firefighters don't have the equipment, training, numbers, etc. When there are real emergencies, police, firefigters and ambulance services don't have any working and practical communications equipment at all. It seems the more developed our country becomes, the more emergency services depend on the very infrastructure that will be first to fail when it's really needed...
It's clear that local (city/county, sometimes state) governments are to blame. They cause flood damage by approving roads to be built, but don't account for drainage, and allow homes to be built in the obvious path of flood waters. In the worst areas, they may even build storm-drains, but do nothing to keep they clear, rending them completely useless wastes of money. Emergency services in flood-prone areas never seem to have the equipment that would make it easy to perform the necessary rescues, meaning people die, money is wasted, etc.
They allow homes to be built near wooded areas, prone to major fires, and don't do the slightest bit of maintenance on those areas to prevent major fires. I've heard of only one city in Southern California that spends a small ammount of money to clear brush, why don't the rest? Firefighters are helpless against forrest-fires, and yet, the preventative controlled burns (the method previously used) have even been stopped.
Hospitals are now (finally) required to have a generator, but only required to have enough capacity to stay up for a short time (a couple days IIRC) when blackouts can last far longer. Besides hospitals, emergency services depend greatly on the power grid, and rarely have the generators they need (typically short-term battery power) so they are the least able to handle emergencies, when they are needed THE MOST.
The point of all of this is simple... What the hell is the good of having a local government, if they aren't taking care of the real necessities? Local governments are needed for the very things they are now neglecting to do, so why not get rid of them all-together? The basic things can be handled by the state government anyhow (police, fire, medical, schools, etc) so if we aren't going to be well-served by local governments, why keep them on as a leech, taking our tax dollars and spending them on trivial things few of us want, and most of us feel like we are getting ripped-off by?
Personally, of course I would prefer if local governments would just start doing their jobs, but since that's not happing, I'd like to see them abolished, rather than keeping the status-quo. What good are they, as is?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
The DXpedition was under the Aegis of National Institute of Amateur Radio (India) and it was lead by Ms. Bharati (VU2RBI), an Indian. I know this, because I saw them off to Nicobar islands a few weeks ago and I have been monitoring their traffic over the last week. They are due back on the mainland today sometime. Read the list of the the operators and the ARRL's version
The purpose of all philosophers was to impress women
"Can you imagine a 500% return on your investment in the business world?"
Yes, I can.
Let's see, the space race heated up in what... 1957?
And this study was done when? 1987? 1997?
Did they go back even further to the WWII rocket research?
500% over what time period?
Well, in fact its not Istanbul quake but known as that.
We lost everything. Well, we have a very very good operator, Turkcell GSM but at one point, they were useless.
TR ham radio guys showed up and practically handled all communications of disaster area.
I think it must be same in USA etc, some major stations are assigned by goverment if some major disaster happens.
For more info: http://www.amatortelsiz.com/english/engindex.html
> But did they use Morse Code?
I think you're a troll... but...
I'm fairly certain that in an emergency you can use whatever mode of transmitting you like in any segment of the band. I'm not certain of this, but I'm sure someone here can tell us for sure.
Regardless, I would think that CW would be the best mode of operation due to the fact that you could use less transmitting power (and conserve your battery) and still get through.
You know you're a geek if you've ever replied to a tagline.
An article on blogging, as contained in the Dec. 27th issue of 'Time' magazine, made a reference to ham radio as a "faintly embarassing" hobby.
I wonder if the operators of that station find it so? Especially since they're providing a most valuable service that the (supposedly) much tougher public infrastructure failed to?
The same thing happened with the Nisqually Quake in 2001. Within minutes after the shocks subsided, landline phones and cellphone networks alike were overwhelmed into non-functionality.
Guess what stayed up and working through the whole affair? Yep. Ham radio VHF and UHF repeaters, and HF nets.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies