Now that N3ADL has mentioned me in connection with this subject
(Tks Doug!) I guess I better put in my two cents' worth.
There is no question in my mind that contesters are better equipped
to handle emergency traffic on HF coming from remote areas in
difficulty than any other group of amateur radio operators,
including those who participate daily in traffic nets. Why?
Because we routinely as a matter of course copy weak signals
through heavy interference, and because some of the best-equipped
stations in the country belong to contesters. Not only that, but
our operating skills have been honed to waste as little time as
possible in the course of carrying out our communications.
Re my own involvement that N3ADL mentioned, I tuned into the 20
meter emergency nets following Hurricane Hugo mainly because, as
Editor of the IARU's Region II News, it is my business to be aware
of what is going on in such situations. Indeed, the lead article
in this month's issue is a detailed first-person account of what
they and others on Anguilla went through during Hugo and Marilyn
by Dave and Dorothea Mann, VP2EE/VP2EHF (who have been super hosts to a
number of contesters), who have just been
awarded ARRL's International Humanitarian Award for their work during the
emergency.
I had no plans to transmit at all, believing that the best type of
participation for all is to keep your mouth shut and your ears open
in such situations. But when KP2W/PJ6 on Saba showed up with lots
of traffic to the states from medical students on the island, I
realized that apparently I was the only one on the net who could
copy him well enough to take his traffic, so I volunteered and we
moved off. (Yes, a 6-el monobander at 150 feet helps!). Two
hours later, after his signal improved to the point where a station
in the Georgia city where the medical college's U.S. administrative
headquarters is located could take over, thus relieving me of the
long-distance charges involved in my phoning from here (the XYL
doesn't quibble about bills I run up in such situations), I
returned to the net to report what I had been doing and was
promptly pressed into service as interim NCS by K4VUD (another
subscriber to this reflector) so he could catch up on paperwork.
Yes, a 6-el monobander also helps control the frequency and pick up
the weak check-ins on backscatter as well as in the target area.
Someone mentioned his participation in the Mexico City earthquake.
On that occasion I happened to be working as the Press Chief for
the United States' Mission to the Organization of American States
(OAS). A lot of the OAS headquarters personnel here in Washington
are Mexican nationals, and they had been cut off from communication
with their families back in the Mexico City area. So the OAS
Secretary General asked my boss to order me to go home and get on
the air and start passing traffic to Mexico City for them, which I
did, with the Secretary General's secretary standing on the corner
in front of the OAS Building to hand me the list of names to be
called as I drove by!
Then as now, we were in the low point of the sunspot cycle. I
speak Spanish and so I found a Spanish-speaking station in Mexico
City and things went along very well until 20 meters went dead as
darkness came. No problem; we switched to 40 meters and kept
things going with the great help of my 3-el Telrex at 94 feet. The
only trouble was, I began to realize that I was just about the only
station able to put a readable signal into Mexico City on 40, and
before long I had every Red Cross station in the country breaking
in asking me to help relay their traffic. So when I finished my
own, I tried to do just that, relaying one message from each of
eight or nine stations in turn and then starting from the
beginning. Atlanta Red Cross had 90-some messages and Houston Red
Cross had over 100, so this was going to be a long process, plus
some stations in Central America were breaking in asking for my
help in relaying their traffic to Mexico City. Even though they
could operate below 7100 they apparently weren't able to break
through to the Mexican stations operating in that part of the band.
Then the famous aftershock hit which was almost as strong as the
initial quake, and knocked my Mexico City correspondent off the
air, leaving us all up the creek. At least I had handled my part
of the bargain with the OAS Secretary General, and the next day the
OAS found a way to get telephone communications into Mexico City
through an IBM office in Guadalajara so I was off the hook.
The point is, many of us contesters do indeed have the stations and
the skills needed to be of service when disaster strikes, and,
let's face it, if it were not for amateur radio's performance
during emergencies, we would be under a lot more pressure to give
up some of our bands. So we should all be willing to pay dues for
some of the joy we get out of amateur radio when we have the
chance.
Some of the places to look for emergency nets handling stuff out of
the Caribbean when disaster strikes are the W2MIG Net (normally a
DX Net) on 14165, the Friendly Caribus Connection on 14283, the UN
Emergency Operations on 14268, and other nets on 14300, 14313 and
14325. In my opinion you can best help by just listening until it
becomes obvious that you can really help in a particular situation
and then, and only then, call in.
Just about the worst problem an NCS faces is the great number of
stations calling in who are really not able to contribute anything
and are just getting in the way. The second-most annoying problem
are the people who have traffic for the disaster area when it is
obvious that the station in the disaster area has no way whatsoever
of delivering a message he might receive since all the phones on
his end are out. The most important thing for participants in
disaster situations to realize is that, at least in the first
couple of days following the disaster, the only thing most stations
in the disaster area have time to do is send the traffic they have
to the outside world. It is very important to resist the
temptation to tell neighbors, or even worse, the media or
government organizations or volunteer organizations, that you are
in contact with the disaster area until you have observed with your
own ears the fact that stations in the area are accepting inbound
traffic. The key is to let the station in the disaster area
control the situation and to bend over backwards not to ask him to
do anything he obviously is in no position to do.
The key, just as it is for a good S&P'er, is listen, listen,
listen...
Very 73,
Fred Laun, K3ZO
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