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Ham Radio Fills Communication Gaps In Nepal Rescue Effort
itwbennett writes: Amateur radio has stepped in to fill communication gaps in Nepal, which is struggling with power outages and a flaky Internet after a devastating earthquake on Saturday killed over 5,000 people. Though 99 persons have ham licenses in Kathmandu, about eight use high-frequency (HF) radios that can transmit long distances, while another 30 have very high frequency and ultra high frequency sets for local traffic, said Satish Kharel, a lawyer in Kathmandu, who uses the ham call signal 9N1AA. The hobbyist radio operators are working round-the-clock to help people get in touch with relatives, pass on information and alert about developing crises.
While you do have a good point, I think that any disaster that requires ham radio for communication would also likely have taken out the local power grid leaving consumer power line networking inoperable.
Do we really need a story about ham radio after every disaster?
Yes. Because it's great to hear about geeks helping people. And it's wonderful to see technology used in positive ways. I love seeing people being nice to one another. These are heroes: not the assholes shooting. Any asshole thug can pick up a gun or bomb, but it takes skill, kindness, and bravery to help people you don't know to contact others.
We need to see and hear more of this in the violent shitty World.
I think we do, but why? It's educational for the younger audience. I would have never known of ham radios and their usage during disasters if not for slashdot. We get new and young readers now and then. It's good for them, but maybe not for you.
I'm ham licensed as well, and this kind of news is a really important aspect of the hobby. There are lots of folks out there who would like to take our radio space and sell it off and it is important that we keep reminding folks that when things get ugly we keep working.
No, the real benefit from amateur radio operations is that they are trained to work as a team. The reality is that the vast majority of the gear used in emergency communications are modern, reliable, commercial rigs that the operators could no more fix internally than you can fix your computer. They don't train to McGuyver the radios, they train to set up command and control links and practice working with interfaces with the Internet and government systems.
That way, when the shit hits the fan they can plop down in their chair and do something useful. Yes, you can get a field station running with a length of wire and a car battery and there are lots of ham radio operators who delight in that sort of thing. But organization and teamwork is the real key to effectiveness and that is why amateur radio has been embraced by governments world wide.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!