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Red Cross Asks For 50 Ham Radio Operators To Fly To Puerto Rico (arrl.org)

Posted by BeauHD on from the relief-efforts dept.

Bruce Perens writes: The red cross has asked for 50 ham radio operators to fly to Puerto Rico and be deployed there for up to three weeks. This is unprecedented in the 75-year cooperation between Red Cross and ARRL, the national organization of ham radio operators for the U.S. The operators will relay health-and-welfare messages and provide communications links where those are missing and are essential to rescue and recovery. With much infrastructure destroyed, short-wave radio is a critical means of communicating from Puerto Rico to the Mainland at this time.

4 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. Nobody believed me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I said ham radio was still important because cell phones don't work in disasters where infrastructure is no longer in place. Been a ham since college in 1999.

    1. Re:Nobody believed me by grumling · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yea, not really. 1200 baud packet is pretty bad for transmitting even basic information on a sustained basis. APRS use is sparse in most of the US, yet listening to 144.39 in any city shows that the channel is almost always saturated, even when there are a lot of high digipeaters and everyone is using the newer wideN-n path.

      In a traditional packet network where you connect to stations using 1 or more digis (connect N0XXX via K1YYY), the channel is quickly saturated with digipeating, which gets far worse when you have hidden node problems and other collisions.

      Mesh networks using modified 802.11x equipment will work better only because there's an automatic routing that takes place, but it will still suffer if there's a high node that becomes a bottleneck, and hidden nodes. At least it will be a little faster and have a decent T/R turn-around time though.

      The time to build these networks is before there's a disaster, then harden the nodes. Or at least identify locations and test ahead of time but keep the equipment out of harm's way until needed. And we hams who want high speed networks on VHF and UHF need to start using what we've got (56 Ksps with QAM and other modulation, OFDM carriers, etc) and then petition the FCC for more bandwidth after we've maxed out what we have.

      --
      "Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
    2. Re:Nobody believed me by geekmux · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not really

      Give up your cell phone for a week. See how insignificant it is for you to not have communications you've grown to rely on to organize your life and coordinate with your friends, family, and employer.

      Now multiply that impact by 3 million. In a disaster zone.

  2. Thanks for the info. I am volunteering. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hi from Adam KB2JPD FDNY*EMS

    Contacted the ARRL right away. I am a first responder from 9/11, EMT for 25 years, 23 years with FDNY, am Spanish speaking, and am a General class amatuer radio operator.
    Please have us in your thoughts and prayers so we can make several miarcles there in Puerto Rico. Those wanting more video and info from the island can look for my friend Nomar Vizcarrondo works for Univision, is a ham, and is getting internet video and news out of Puerto Rico. Much of the audio is in Spanish but the video is self-explanatory.