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Ham Radio Operators Are Heroes In Oregon
An anonymous reader writes "We all know the impact that Ham radio can have in emergencies, but that often slips by the public and the authorities. Not so in Oregon, where a day after getting inundated with torrential rains and winds and suffering from the usual calamities those cause, Oregon's Governor called the local Ham radio operators heroes. When discussing how the storm affected communications, the governor stated: "I'm going to tell you who the heroes were from the very beginning of this...the ham radio operators." Kudos to the Oregon Ham operators for helping out in a bad situation, and getting the recognition they deserve."
I live in Oregon, and let me say, things are still a huge mess around here. Although I personally didn't need rescuing (although someone I know did!), I must say that the HAM operators are an invaluable asset in an event like this. On the coast, communications are still spotty, if existent at all. There was an article in the Oregonian today about how some places on the coast don't even have 911 service, since all of the fiber links for phones are out, and the 911 center doesn't have power anyway - the gas for the generator ran out. It's situations like this where HAM radio operators are particularly useful.
It's still a mess out here. Lots of roads are still closed - Interstate 5 is closed in Washington, effectively cutting off all transportation between Portland and Seattle. Thousands of cars, and most importantly, trucks, travel[ed] this highway daily. The train tracks are closed too, so there's no amtrak or freight trains. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens... things are improving, but in no speedy fashion.
You mean something like Packet Radio
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
Why bother going through the center of the Earth when the ionosphere can easily bounce radio waves.
Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
Hi Guys. Try searching on NF5B in your favorite search engine. You will get quite a few results, but a few are links to stories about NF5B and his role in saving lives during Katrina. I am fortunate enough to be a good friend of Richard and Kathleed. This legally blind musician and his Lady (who is wheelchair bound most of the time) are true heros, as are many others who seldome get the press coverage, or the recognition that they deserve. Richard and Kathleed also participate in the Maritime Mobile Service Net. This net is composed of Amateir Operators who give their time and use their radio equipment to help ships at sea, and also others in parts of the world who have no other means of communication except for Amateur Radio. The members of this net have saved many lives, and helped countless mariners communicate with loved ones. I monitor this net when conditions permit.
There are many unsung heros among the ranks of Amateur Radio operators.
Myself, I stick mostly to slow but useful 1200 baud AFSK on VHF. When you're passing things like short text messages, telemetry, and position reports, you don't NEED huge amounts of speed. What you need is a system to get the most critical information to where it will do the most good. And 1200 baud has a big advantage in that you can use it over damn near anything that'll pass a voice signal. You can fit an entire modem and protocol stack in a $2, 8-bit microcontroller, too - no fancy ASICs or DSPs needed (see my link below).
As for the long-distance HF communications people usually associate with ham radio, there's PSK-31 which is a very robust and efficient mode designed for keyboard-to-keyboard use. It's slow, but works when almost nothing else does. It can be encoded with the above-mentioned MCU (I do that for propagation beacons and such) but most people just use a sound card and PC.
Pactor III and other modes give you speeds suitable for email on the HF bands, and they're used for that quite a bit.
Ham radio in emergency situations is less about fancy toys, though, and more about having people with the training and knowledge to be able to use them, and to improvise when things go wrong. That's another reason I stick with relatively low-tech stuff - I'd rather build low-cost devices that can be kludged into doing all sorts of useful things than to focus on finicky, expensive, cutting-edge stuff that's going to fall apart when the fecal matter hits the air circulating device.
Yes, there are a lot of crusty old guys on the radio. But keep in mind that ham radio is what nerds did BEFORE computers and Slashdot, and a lot of them remember that spirit, even if they've fallen behind the curve a bit in technology. There's also a growing number of young hams developing exciting things like GNU Radio, and the open source philosophy is increasingly prevalent in the community. I'm certain that in the next decade open source will be THE major driving force in the hobby.
In the end, it's really just a return to the hobby's roots. There's always been a great deal of information sharing and experimentation, but much of that spirit has dwindled in recent years because of the aging population and the increasing complexity and manufacturing costs associated with modern gear. Open source software, plus DSP, FPGAs, fast computers, and software-defined radios, as well as increased ease of collaboration and access to contract manufacturing are swinging things back the other way.
Think of it this way - a weekend's worth of dedicated cramming can get you a license that grants access to some rather large chunks of spectrum, often with relatively little in the way of restrictions on how you use it. That's the sort of resource that corporations spend millions for - look at the 700 MHz auctions going on now. That license gets you a huge radio frequency playground that's not only wide open for experimentation, it NEEDS active experimentation and exploitation or it will be taken away and auctioned off to the corporations. Don't wait for Google's Android to save wireless communications from the likes of AT&T - go develop an open replacement for a proprietary mode (start with Pactor III or D*Star's AMBE codec), or start a solar-powered 802.11b backbone, or SOMETHING.
Hell, just to make things interesting - I'll send one of my OpenTracker+ kits, free, anywhere in the world, to anyone with a Slashdot account that already exists as of today who gets a license before the end of February 2008. It may not be everyone's thing, but A) it's free and B) it comes with source code. Email scott@argentdata.com.
Funny how I've seen PSK-31 (a digital mode) work perfectly without a detectable (to my Field Day trained ear) signal. Morse may be better than voice... but a computer can outdo a human ear.
Note that I say this as a computer scientist and as a ham radio operator myself. I'm not suggesting that Morse is obsolete or useless... just that it's not automatically the best thing ever. The wonderful thing about this hobby is that it breeds innovation. From the earliest days of ultra-wide-bandwidth spark gap generators to a complete packet transceiver the size of an Altoids tin, the world of amateur radio, and the amateurs that have built it, is nothing short of amazing. However, if we really want to bring life back in this hobby, we need to stop all the infighting and think. We need to look at each operating mode honestly and attempt to appreciate the merits and the shortcomings of each of them. For every great thing you can name about the code, I can name another mode that does it better. But that's not what the hobby is about.
In response to the article, good on the Oregon hams, and congrats to them for getting recognized. They deserve it.
I'm waiting for a "-1 somepeoplejustshouldn'tgetmodprivileges" meta-moderation.
The code requirement for license to operate on radio bands that are considered long distance is mandatory by the treaties that setup a global radiospace for ham radio.
The code-free tech license is in bands that are for all intents (near Canada/mexico border would be the exception) are US only.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.