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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."
"Anyway, in my experience the people left on the airwaves are all at least 60 years old."
The barriers to entry that kept the hobby purist worked a bit too well.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Cell phones are very convenient, but what gives me peace of mind is knowing my quad-band (70cm, 1.25m, 2m, 6m), wide-receive, submersible Yaesu VX-7R hand-held transceiver is close at hand. If James Kim would have had even a basic Amateur hand-held transceiver with him things would have probably turned out much different.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
That's the problem.
:)
Guys like me (50 years old) don't care to, or are able to, do 5 WPM in Morse code. And as far as that goes, learning Morse never made sense to me anyways, not since the advent of the PC. Hell, I've had an Icom 735 for over 25 years without a license. I like to lurk.
So how do you attract new blood to an activity that's waaay too geeky to begin with? Kids aren't going to bother learning Morse when they can use a program to do the same thing - why would they bother?
So faced with either keeping the hobby "pure" and watching it die out as the oldtimer's keys go silent, or conceding to reality and making membership more attactive to younger folks, which would you choose?
But you're right, it's definitely not the same as it was 20 - 30 years ago.
I dream in binary.
Perhaps that's because they've had their houses since before subdividers began putting a stop to amateur radio with covenants against antennas.
rj
Yeah, they're heroes today, but when Oregon's power utilities decide to start providing Internet over their power lines, turning their electrical grid into one vast RF radiator that wipes out HAM frequencies, we'll have all those all-knowing /.ers declaring HAM radio a thing of the past, that they should get a life, and my personal favorite "Don't worry, when the power goes out, we can turn on your HAM radio sets and save us all, so what's the problem?"
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
FWIW, the "ham" in ham radio radio is not an abbreviation. It's just ham.
There's no definitive answer on the matter, but it goes back to the days when ham radio operators had better sets than the old Navy radios (in spark-gap radio days). Amateur radio operators had more efficient radios and were more powerful than the "professional" radio sets at the time, when a Navy radio operator would try to use the frequency his set was tuned for he may hear some guys "hamming it up" on the air. After a while the saying was commonplace and the term "ham" stuck.
Officially it's known as Amateur Radio, but most people just refer to it as ham radio.
"And now you know the rest of the story, good day!"
Also, disasters strike in many different ways. It's conceivable that there might be an occasion where the only viable communications medium you have is boolean (a carrier wave with no microphone or modulator circuit, or hammers and pipes in a cave-in, or whatever.) If that's the case, it's Morse or nothing.
Ham radio operators pride themselves on being able to communicate when absolutely nothing else works, and the world is crashing down (or blowing up) around them. Morse is another tool in the toolbox.
John
I live in the Portland-Metro area and can confirm we (as in the Pacific NW) had a doozy of a storm. Mist - rain - horizontal rain - and rain like a cow pissing on a flat rock.
This is basically a repeat of what we got in 1996 which I believe was rated as a hundred year flood -- so within 10yrs we have another event. Wonder how all this maps into the whole climate change picture.
And yes - thanks to the Hams for helping out as they always do. In any major disaster where public communications infrastructure will be damaged --- independent radio operators can make critical connections
Its not the years, its the mileage
HAM/Shortwave radio was the web. My older brother received one for a gift on his 10th birthday. I remember listening to late night, anonymous conversations taking place somewhere in space - and halfway around the world. We would fall asleep to global station ids, appalachian preachers, data transfers and space noise. we'd tune in to eastern bloc radio and wonder how it was that they could be "evil communists" (keep in mind, that is the early 70's). When I was a teenager, I learned how to play "Stairway to Heaven" with the BFO Pitch. While I wasn't a techie with it, my experience was truley amazing and wonderful.
... guess that means it is time.
Years later, I dug it out the attic and and hooked it up to some effects processors and ran it thru a dj mixer with some foot pedals. Beyond providing otherworldly broadcasts it produced sweeps that were so ridulously thick and warm. It actually has made it onto a couple of our recordings (MySpace) over the years. The sad thing is that being on the road, it is kind of beat up and needs a bit of TLC
Actually, you're not correct, on several important aspects:
CW bandwidth is much narrower than 500 Hz (that's just what people use on their receivers)
There are many modulation schemes that send the same or more data in less bandwidth at worse SNR. If for no other reason than the keep the transmitter on all the time, as opposed to turning it on and off. There's a reason why they don't use morse code to send data at 8 bps back and forth to spacecraft in deep space.
It IS true that a morse code transmitter is probably the simplest. But as a "system" with a receiver, that's probably not the case (because you need a BFO or equivalent in the receiver).
I'm a HAM radio operator, and the requirement of learning Morse code to be allowed to operate on shortwave has always baffled me. Yes, I can imagine that knowing your dahs from your dits can be an advantage in bad reception conditions and in emergencies, but there is so much more.
For shortwave, knowledge of radio propagation and atmospheric conditions, good antenna design and particularly good Operating Practice are way more important IMO.
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
There was a guy who not only used his 5 Watt HAM radio to communicate directly with the Space Station, but he also bounced radio waves off of the moon to communicate with someone in the other hemisphere! I don't know his exact setup, but he was into some serious HAM. Its amazing how great the spectrum they use is... Oh and passing the HAM test is probably doable without any studying. Its multiple choice and pretty damn easy if you can take those kinds of tests. I took it so I could operate an amateur TV transmitter from a model airplane. But thats another story...
Some people value that, *especially* in emergencies like what we're talking about here, when ham radio became literally the *only* method of communication available.
I for one have seen the impact they make.
I work Mounted Search and Rescue, (horse back) and have hauled their equipment to the tops of mountains for them so they can set up comms for the area.
I have also had HAM's make a radio call to another state just to make an emergency phone call. So its real good seeing this kind of press for them.
-- I am the NRA, enough said...
Unfortunately, this came a few decades too late. We did not get an increase in new people becoming hams. A lot of existing hams upgraded their licenses, but the overall number of radio amateurs is declining today. New hams are not enrolling in sufficient amounts to replace those with expiring licenses (who are probably mostly dead).
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Even membership at the largest groups like the Free Masons is drastically down because of this "me,me,me,ME!" shift in community focus.
My belief is you're seeing the same sickness which has infected almost all levels of society. And IMOHO, it seems to get worse with the current generation. The current generation is all about "me" and all feel entitled. And if you don't play their game of giving to them, then you're not worth spit so why should they do anything for anyone else.
In other words, I don't see what you're describing as a ham problem, I see it as a larger societal problem.