Ham Radio Operators Providing a Community Service
Amateur
Radio under it’s banner of WICEN (Wireless Institute Civil Emergency Network)
was used extensively around the mountains of East Gippsland on the weekend of 4th
and 5th December 2005 supporting the Historic Alpine Car Rally. WICEN
operators were involved from control Headquarters at Lakes Entrance on Saturday
morning to the finish line near Bruthen on Sunday afternoon. Amateur Radio
operators from East Gippsland Radio Group as well as a lot of support from other
radio operators from various Clubs and groups that are WICEN members across
Victoria took part.
The
job at hand was to report start and finish information into Rally Headquarters
that a car had started in a section, and the radio operator at the end of that
section would in turn report when a car by number had finished that section.
This supplied all the necessary details to the officials and support crews of
each car as to where it was placed. With cross reference checking at Rally
control, each car was accounted for as to its whereabouts. In the case of break
downs or rollovers, the safety and well being of the drivers could be tracked
very quickly.
With
around 80 cars in the rally and 19 sections covering the landscape from Lakes
Entrance to Bell Bird, Buchan, Ensay and back to Lakes Entrance, this took a lot
of organization and man hours by operators. Saturday operators began on check
points from 9.00am and finished at 4.00am on the Sunday morning. Some operators
camped overnight Saturday on-site and ran another stage checkpoint on Sunday.
The main communications were done on 2 metres via FM repeaters; some repeaters
are located in their permanent locations of Mt Nowa Nowa and Mt Bemm, while
other portable repeaters were specifically set up just for the event on Mt Buck
and Pheasants Hill. HF communications were also used as back up.
For this type of event, Amateur Radio operators supply their time and
portable radio gear on a voluntary basis, using the activity as training in the
case of a disaster in the area. This type of operation is certainly not unique
to Australia, with the hurricanes recently in New Orleans and the tsunami in
Asia, Amateur Radio provided a lot of the communications to the disaster
effected areas. Anyone wanting to find out more about Amateur Radio in East
Gippsland can have a look at the group website at www.vk3eg.org
Yours in Radio,
Rob
VK3EK
Wicen
Victoria Member # 318