Amateur Radio operators became involved in the rescue effort soon after the March 11 8.9 earthquake and devastating tsunami that hit northern Japan, and that effort continues nearly two weeks later.
A 7.5 earthquake has just hit near Petaluma. Water, power, and gas lines are out. You try calling 911, but the phones don’t work. Roads are broken and blocked. You and your family are stuck in your home, unsure when or if any help is coming.
When a tornado or wildfire hits Montana, the firsthand reports often come from ham radio enthusiasts, who provide crucial and timely information for the National Weather Service or local emergency responders.
As tornadoes tore across Southeast Nebraska in May 2004, leveling Hallam in southern Lancaster County, Reynolds Davis sat in the basement of his house in Lincoln, glued to a chair in front of a pile of electronics.
“I sat here from 8 in the evening until probably 5 a.m.,” Davis, 68, remembers.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology?s (NIST) Time and Frequency Division is conducting a survey to learn more about its users, seeking to determine how the agency can make its services more useful in the future. NIST services include WWV, WWVH and WWVB, which provide reference time and frequency signals via radio. The NIST also provides the Internet Time Service — which provides accurate time synchronization to computer systems — and several other services to offer accurate time information via telephone or web pages. Radio amateurs are encouraged to complete the survey.
When nurses and other caregivers picked up their phones at Children?s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) in California in the early morning on March 21, there was no dial tone. A power surge caused the central processor in the hospital?s phone switch to fail. Following established procedures, the Lead Operator at the CHOC switchboard immediately activated the Hospital Disaster Support Communications System (HDSCS), using an off-switch tie-line to reach April Moell, WA6OPS, head of this ARES group that specializes in helping hospitals when their communications fail.
I started teaching in 1972 in Glenwood, Washington, a small logging community at the base of Mount Adams. In 1974 one of my students and several community members asked if I would help them get their Amateur Radio licenses. We set up classes and the one student and three community members earned their Novice class licenses. Thus began my career as an Elmer.
Earlier this month, the ARRL filed a Petition for Rulemaking and a Request for Temporary Waiver with the FCC, seeking authorization of the use of single-time-slot Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) emissions in the amateur bands at and above 50 MHz, wherever multiple-time-slot TDMA is authorized. The FCC has designated the Petition as RM-11625 and is soliciting comments on it. Comments may be filed electronically and will be accepted until April 22.
At 10:04 AM PDT (1704 UTC) on Monday, March 21, Rex Weinheimer, KC5AGO, of Stonewall, Texas — a member of Maritime Mobile Service Net (MMSN) — heard and responded to a weak and broken MAYDAY call. The call was from the sailing vessel Gloria Jean, a 30 foot sailboat that was in the Pacific Ocean about 120 miles west of Ensenada, Mexico. Weinheimer heard the distress call on 14.300 MHz, a frequency monitored by the MMSN.
Ham radios once played a key role in the operations of the U.S. military before fading into the background with the arrival of better and more accessible forms of communication like cell phones, the Internet and Skype.
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