“With telephones down and wireless service disrupted, at least one group of people did manage last week to use technology to come to the rescue of those in need,” MSNBC notes. ” Often unsung, amateur radio operators regularly assist in emergency situations. Hurricane Katrina was no exception.”
For the past week, operators of amateur, or ham, radio have been instrumental in helping residents in the hardest hit areas, including saving stranded flood victims in Louisiana and Mississippi…
When disaster strikes, ham networks spring into action. The Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) consists of licensed amateurs who have voluntarily registered their qualifications and equipment for communications duty in the public service.
In this disaster a number of ham emergency stations and networks have been involved in providing information about this disaster from WX4NHC, the amateur radio station at the National Hurricane Center to the Hurricane Watch Net, the Waterway Net, Skywarn and the Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network (SATERN).
On Monday, Aug. 29, a call for help involving a combination of cell telephone calls and amateur radio led to the rescue of 15 people stranded by floodwaters on the roof of a house in New Orleans. Unable to get through an overloaded 911 system, one of those stranded called a relative in Baton Rouge. That person called another relative, who called the local American Red Cross.
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Ham Radio is a valuable resource for disasters and so often the public never knows the important service they perform. They are doing far more than is recognized or acknowledged. Looking at the present disaster of Katrina, more people need to sign up and learn Ham Radio – there could be a time when it will be the only communication for emergency operations.It is a great hobby, involves many activities if one wishes and in case of emergency, can and does provide life saving communication. My son is presently in La. helping direct food and water distribution by Ham Radio.
Stories of this nature are what the hobby is all about. The FCC has proposed makeing it easier to get a license by eliminating the morse code requirement. The American Radio Relay League, ARRL, has proposed streamlining it all together, but no action yet by the FCC.
You don’t need morse code to get an operators license. I have been a liscensed operator for almost ten years and I don’t know morse code. You can get your tech license with no morse code requirement and be able to operate on many of the hame radio frequencies in the vhf and uhf range.You can purchase a 2 meter handheld radio for under a couple hundred bucks. This will allow you to operate on hundreds of repaters across the country. Most repeaters have back up power sources and have 911 patching capability.
For more info contact your American Red Cross or go to the ARRL website.
Great news article. Long overdue on Ham Radio Operators. I have been wondering what other emergency radio organizations such as the CB Radio emergency team called REACT has been involved with in the southeast. Again a job well done.
Of course some friends of the President wanted
take away the Amateur VHF and UHF frequencies
to use in their own commercial ventures. So
they wouldn’t have been available in this
emergency.
Typical stuff we seem to expect from Washington
these days.
But … wait for it …. it was in 1996 when
that was proposed.
Some one else was President then, iirc.