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The Toroid

January, 2005

In this edition:

Ham Radio & the Tsunami - the plus side of ham radio's usefulness

The Inevitable End of Ham Radio - and the flip side

BPL News

Field Day Re-cap

FARA Club News

November Meeting Minutes

Ham Radio & the Tsunami

from washingtonpost.com
 

Wave of Destruction, Wave of Salvation
 
 By Rama Lakshmi
 
  PORT BLAIR, India -- About one month ago, Bharathi Prasad and her team of six  young ham radio operators landed in this remote island capital  with a hobbyist's dream: Set up a station and establish a new world record for global ham radio contacts. In the world of ham slang, it was called a "Dxpedition."
 
 "It is a big honor to come to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and operate. There is no ham activity here because it is considered a very sensitive area by the Indian government," said Prasad, a 46-year-old mother of two from New Delhi.
 
 In fact, the last ham activity in these scattered islands in the Bay of Bengal, 900 miles east of the Indian mainland, occurred in 1987, when Prasad set up a station in Port Blair and made 15,500 calls. "I had always wanted to come back and break that record," she said.
 
 This time, Prasad set up an antenna in her hotel and turned Room 501 into a radio station. She made more than 1,000 contacts every day and said she operated "almost all day and all night, with just three hours of sleep."
 
 In the early hours of Dec. 26, while the other hotel guests were fast asleep, Prasad's room was crackling with the usual squawks and beeps. At 6:29 a.m., she felt the first tremors of an earthquake. The tables in her room started shaking violently. She jumped up and shouted, "Tremors!" into her microphone. Then the radio went dead. She ran out and alerted the hotel staff and other guests.
 
 But with that one word, she had alerted the world of radio hams, too.
 
 Within a few hours,  the extent of the damage was clear to everyone in Port Blair. But the tsunami had knocked out the power supply and telephone service of the entire archipelago of 500 islands, leaving  the capital virtually cut off from the rest of India.
 
 Undaunted, Prasad set up a temporary station on the hotel lawn with the help of a generator -- and put the city back on the ham radio map.
 
 "I contacted Indian hams in other states and told them about what had happened. The whole world of radio hams were looking for us, because they had not heard from us after the tremors," she said later. "But I also knew this was going to be a big disaster. I immediately abandoned my expedition and told all radio operators to stop disturbing me. I was only on emergency communication from then on."
 
 While news of the death and devastation caused by the tsunami in other parts of India was quickly transmitted around the world,  the fate of the Andamans and Nicobars was slow to unfold.
 
 Prasad kept broadcasting information about the situation to anyone who could hear her radio. Over and over, she repeated that there was no power, no water, no phone lines.
 
 On Monday morning, she marched into the district commissioner's office and offered her services. "What is a ham?" he asked her. After she explained, he let her set up a radio station in his office, and a second one on Car Nicobar, the island hit hardest.
 
 For the next two days, as the government grappled with the collapsed communication infrastructure, Prasad's ham call sign, VU2RBI, was the only link for thousands of Indians who were worried about their friends and families in the islands. She also became the hub for relief communications among officials.
 
 "Survivors in Car Nicobar were communicating with their relatives in Port Blair through us," she said. When the phone lines were restored on Tuesday, Prasad's team in Car Nicobar radioed information about survivors to her team in Port Blair, whose members then called anxious relatives on the mainland to tell them that their loved ones were alive and well.
 
 Prasad also helped 15 foreign tourists, including several from the United States, send news to their families. Offers of relief aid poured in from around the world through her radio, and she directed them to government officials. She also arranged for volunteer doctors to be sent from other Indian states.
 
 Now she has become so popular in the islands, and in the ham world, that she said she has been affectionately nicknamed the "Teresa of the Bay of Bengal."
 
 When the earthquake occurred, Prasad's worried husband called her from New Delhi and asked her to return home immediately.
 
 "He reminded me that I have two children to look after back home," she said, laughing. "I told him that as a ham radio operator, I have a duty in times of disaster."
 
 Under India's strict communications laws,  a ham cannot leave home with his or her radio without going through an elaborate bureaucratic process to obtain permission from various ministries.
 
 Prasad said that after her first expedition to Port Blair, she spent 17 years begging and badgering officials before she was allowed to return.
 
 Now she hopes her work in the aftermath of the tsunami will ease the path for other hams in India.
 
 "She looked like a simple housewife when she checked in," recalled Ravi Singh, the hotel manager in Port Blair. "But now I marvel at the courage she has shown."
 

 Would you like to send this article to a friend? Go to
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/admin/emailfriend?contentId=A41861-2005Jan2&sent=no&referrer=emailarticle
 

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

 

The Inevitable End of Ham Radio

Joe Tomasone (AB2M)
November 23, 2004

Yes, yes, I know. You've heard this before. It's been pronounced when
FM was introduced, screamed from the mountaintops when no-code came to
be, and continues even today with BPL. However, I have seen some
disturbing trends lately, and I think that they point towards the slow
and painful death of the hobby we hold dear. Please, indulge me for a
moment as I explain.

Whenever there is any threat to Amateur Radio, be it potential band
reallocation, Part 15 intrusion, or any other issue that threatens to
upset the status quo, we hams immediately raise the one sacred,
(usually) FCC-scaring, blood boiling rallying cry that we have - WE
PROVIDE EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS. We never justify ourselves anymore
as advancers of the radio art (we'd be hard pressed to do so these
days), so the only value we can provide to justify our continued
occupancy of billions of dollars of spectrum is merely emergency
communications. I believe that very soon, certainly in my lifetime, we
will be all but out of that game. Allow me to explain.

I have been a resident of Tampa, FL for the past few years. 2004 will
certainly be remembered around here for a long time - and should have
been a shining example of emergency communications saving the day time
and time again. You didn't hear that this time. Wonder why? I spent
time in some of the hardest hit areas here in Florida, and what I saw
from an emergency communications perspective scared me silly. Before
we tackle that, however, let's go back in time a little:

1991: A newly licensed ham living in Long Island, NY; I am called up
to help provide communications in support of Hurricane Bob, which
would up dealing a glancing blow to the eastern end of the Island. We
were activated by the local emergency management office, and assigned
to various government and first responding agencies to allow for
intercommunication if needed. Fortunately, we were not tasked in my
immediate area.

1996: TWA Flight 800 crashes off the coast of Long Island. Hams assist
the Red Cross in providing communications for mass care operations
(primarily). This, I will later realize, is the first operation I have
been involved with in which hams were merely augmenting a cellular
system that was overloaded for an agency that has radio communication
equipment of its own but rarely uses due to training and equipment issues.

2001: 9/11. I am forced by my employer to sit this one out in Florida
(where I have arrived earlier in the year), but manage to scrape
together a web-based database to manage the load of volunteers. I
quickly realize that this, again, is a Red Cross/Salvation Army
support operation. I never heard of any assistance to FDNY, NYPD, Port
Authority Police, the EMO, or anything else.

2004: Four hurricanes in almost as many weeks. Hardly anywhere in
Florida has not been affected by these storms. People are without
food, shelter, electricity, water, telephones, cell phones (in many
cases). Essentially, much of Florida has dialed the clock back 100
years or so. Tensions are high. The EMOs consider how to prevent civil
disturbances and looting of incoming food and supplies. Fire
Departments are going door to door looking for survivors. Driving
through the main street of a town at night is hazardous at more than
5mph due to the amount of overhead and downed debris and electrical
wiring (which probably is dead, but who knows?).

So, you might ask, how did Amateur Radio respond?

I'm not sure we did.

I responded to 3 seriously hit areas: Wauchula (in Central Florida),
Punta Gorda (in South Florida) and Pensacola (in the Florida Panhandle).

In Wauchula, we delivered a portable repeater system so that the
responding agencies could communicate. That sounds like a fine use of
ham radio - except it was a Forestry repeater, on their frequencies.
Sure, we hams brought it and deployed it, but anyone familiar with the
setup could have. The Sheriff's Department lost a huge tower (and thus
their repeater) in the storm, leaving them with no communications save
simplex, which didn't even come close to covering their operating
area. Therefore, deputies in the furthest reaching areas had no
communications. We were able to move their repeater to another
location that had a working antenna and saved the day. But once again,
we did not operate OUR radios, save for local simplex communications
to get this all accomplished.

As the EMO had no tasking for us (by now the cellular providers had
their mobile cell sites around), we left.

Punta Gorda. Ground Zero for Hurricane Charley. I arrive there a week
after Charley hits to help relieve the operators from the local area.
I get there to find no tasking other than Red Cross communications,
and a Section Manager so starved for something to do - ANYTHING to do
- that he cooks up a plan to have hams drive around the community
soliciting health and welfare traffic. Remember, folks, this is a full
WEEK after the Hurricane. If you haven't gotten a message out to your
loved ones in a week, you probably don't want to. Again, there's
little to do - the Red Cross is using Nextels - which are working.

Pensacola. In the wake of Hurricane Ivan, the call goes out - hams are
needed - BADLY. I kiss the YL goodbye, load my Jeep, and start out on
the 8 hour drive. Upon arrival, I am sent to the local Red Cross (here
we go again) headquarters to relieve operators. There, I meet two hams
who inform me that they have passed 3 messages in the past 24 hours.
Three. One ham has extensive damage to his home and, quite frankly,
this is a better place for him to sleep at the moment. The other ham
wonders what we are doing there. He departs the next morning.

In the morning, I am informed that Red Cross operations are moving
from the Chapter Headquarters to a larger facility in the donated
basement of a commercial company. I am asked to establish
communications from there to the EOC. Getting there, I am staggered to
find that I am expected to provide communications to a building that
has working telephones, internet access, email, a slew of Nextels that
are being handed out, and, to add insult to injury, 2 Red Cross comm
vans with every type of radio known to man (including ham), satellite
links into the National Red Cross Network, and WiFi.

I tell the hams running the show at the EOC what the story is - I'm
providing communications for a building that has more communications
than I think I have ever seen in one location before. They respond by
sending a total of 4 more hams to assist. I speak to the local EC and
tell him that if he doesn't want a boatload of really perturbed hams,
he'd better find some taskings for us to justify putting out the ARES
equivalent of an All Points Bulleting screaming for ham help. He
promises that we will have something to do in the morning.

I spend a part of the night helping the Red Cross folks set up WiFi so
that they don't have to run cabling to each workstation for network
access. I begin to wonder if I could have left my license at home.

The next morning, we do indeed have a tasking. The Red Cross is making
a push into the hardest hit local area on the beach near the Gulf of
Mexico - as close to the landfall point as we're gonna get. (It
literally is described almost like an offensive against rebels in
Iraq). Given the amount of sand that was blown over roadways, I am
chosen along with another of my overnight compatriots for the task
since we both have 4-wheel drive. We depart, with instructions to meet
and team up with two other hams at the parking lot of a local
supermarket just outside the devastated area. There, we are to await
the Red Cross team that will push Mass Care into this area.

Upon our arrival, we meet the two hams immediately, and they are NOT
happy. They've been waiting there for this Red Cross team for HOURS,
and each time they ask where the Red Cross is, they are told "any time
now". Seeing us, they quickly decide that we are their relief. They've
had it, and head home. Net Control doesn't sound too surprised to hear
that they have abandoned ship.

My new partner and I wait for three hours. Yes, that's right, THREE
HOURS. No sign of the Red Cross. During our wait, we take some time to
take a look at the shopping center in this hard-hit, hurricane ravaged
area. The supermarket is open. OPEN? We look inside. They have milk.
MILK? I can't buy milk in TAMPA, and we never came close to being hit
by Ivan! Further inspection here reveals that they have ice, bread,
bottled water, and everything that people in a hurricane-ravaged area
should be waiting in long lines and mugging their fellow citizens for.
All the while, my cell phone has a great signal, and I am able to make
and get calls at will. Now, really starting to question our mission
here, we begin asking Net Control the tough questions: WHERE IS THIS
TEAM, AND WHAT IS OUR MISSION? A great deal of scurrying is heard over
in the EOC, and eventually we are told that they don't know where the
Red Cross team is, but we should await them.

Sorry. We've been here for three and a half hours, and the team before
us was waiting almost as long. I snap. I drive back, collect my
belonging, and without so much as a word, I begin the drive home,
arriving at 4am, the stomach acid churning in my stomach having proved
quite adequate to keep me awake for the drive. The other ham (and a
few others) leave the area as well, ranging from disillusioned to
plain old mad.

Sitting back afterwards, I began to realize a few trends that had been
slowly emerging:

1. Ham Radio (well, ARES anyway) has largely become the free
communications auxiliary to the Red Cross.

Worse, they already have enough communications capability to more than
cover themselves. Their problem? A lack of trained communicators.
Suddenly, I grasp why we always seem to be assigned to the Red Cross.
I try to remember the last time I was assigned to anyone other than
the Red Cross during an emergency. I have to go back almost ten years.

2. The Red Cross doesn't need us.

Even while assigned to the Red Cross, the only task consistently put
to hams is to relay shelter census counts. I almost couldn't believe
my ears as I heard hams relaying shelter census counts to an EOC when
both had fully working landline phones. Why are we used in this
scenario? Because they don't have to use Red Cross personnel to do it.
For their critical comms, they use Nextel. I can't remember the last
time I saw the Red Cross even use their OWN radios, which they have in
abundance.

3. Cell phones, mutual aid repeaters, Blackberries are replacing Ham
Radio as the inter-agency communications glue.

None of the Emergency Management Offices I worked with had any need
for communications outside of these. Cell phone providers rush in
mobile cell sites (called "COWs" - Cellular On Wheels - a cell site on
a trailer) when an emergency hits - and registered Emergency
Management personnel get higher priority on the cell network - so
overloaded cell sites are becoming a thing of the past for our served
agencies. Blackberries run on the cellular networks and are low
bandwidth devices. Even in areas with no electricity, the Blackberry
owners were tapping away like mad.

Now, you may say that this isn't the case in your area. You might even
be right. However, I think we have seen the end of the era in which
Amateur Radio saves the day as a matter of course in this country. In
fact, the only example I've seen lately of Ham Radio coming through
where all else fails is in the Hurricane Nets to the islands like
Cuba, Grenada, and Haiti. In other words, those outside the US.

I see this as in inevitable slide down a slope towards more and more
communications capability in the hands of the masses. Look at the
revolution in smart cellphones - I carry a Treo 600 - a device from
which I can surf the web, get and send email, and make and get phone
calls - all in one little device. It wasn't all that long ago (fifteen
years, perhaps?) that a cell phone was considered small if it fit in a
briefcase. Where will we be in fifteen more years? Will we be able to
still claim that we provide a critical, unique, robust communications
capability? I think that once so many forms of communications saturate
the general public that they can't all possibly go down during a
disaster that we will have lost that argument. Remember when CW was
the mode that got you through when all else failed? Now, make that
argument to anyone but a CW buff and you'll be laughed at. I remember
being able to show my HT to a teenager and see the look of amazement
when I made a contact over a repeater to the next County. Now, that
same teenager will ask if that big cell phone I'm carrying can play
cool ringtones. I rapidly see the day approaching in which we will be
relegated to the museums like the dinosaurs that we will have become -
a quaint memory of what once was. A nostalgic trip down communications
lane. We will, as a hobby, become the macrocosm of CW - outdated,
outmoded, and universally laughed at as we try to claim that we are
needed somehow.

And then the spectrum vultures will come.

BPL News

For the latest on the BPL front, here is the

Clearinghouse for BPL information

site hosted by the Ole Virginia Hams Amateur Radio Club.

Field Day Re-cap

FARA finished 9th out of all Virginia Section participants, and second in the 3A category.  The list of the top 20 Virginia Section scores is below:

FARA Report for Fall/Winter 2004

This will appear in the February,2005 Issue of Auto-Call.

Christmas Dinner

FARA Members celebrated the Holidays with Christmas Dinner on December 11^th in Marshall. The highlight of the dinner was the gift exchange and swap, especially when the swaps weren’t voluntary. Special thanks go to Tom, KD5CMI and his family for coordinating the dinner.

Mark, KD6AKC gets the attention of the group.

FARA members share Christmas plans before dinner.

2005 Officers

Club officers were voted in at the November meeting:

President: Mark Lindsey - KD6AKC

Vice President: Frank Ross – W4NHJ

Treasurer: Neil Spokes - AB4YK

Secretary: Tom Beavers - KD5CMI

Program Chairman: Dave Buckwalter - K3SK

Field Day Wrap-up

After all of the contacts were tallied, FARA had a respectable 1,925 QSOs for a score of 6,352 points. The club placed 9^th of all Virginia clubs and 159^th over all in the contest.

Another New Ham

Kudos go to Sandra, KI4HVG for getting her ticket and joining husband Jim, KI4FVT and son Kyle, W4KTF making it an all-ham family.

Call for Programs

The next club meetings will be February 10^th  and March 10^th. Contact Dave, K3SK with ideas for programs.

November Meeting Minutes

Questions or Comments?

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01/09/2005