A couple of years ago when 10 meters was really rocking, I had a really
interesting situation come up in the ARRL 10 meter contest.
I was running stations on about 28430 when a station comes on and says,
"Breaker Breaker Emergency Emergency". At first I thought it was a joke and
just went on running stations. In a few moments he came back on and
repeated the "Breaker Breaker Emergency". I asked the station for his call.
The station came back on and said, "I don't have a call, I am not a ham".
He went to tell me that he was a trucker on the Interstate in Ohio and that
the had just driven up on a major multi vehicle pileup. His "CB" was
actually a converted ham rig that still worked 10 meters. The interesting
part is that he told me he needed to get help immediately"so he picked out a
LOUD signal and said EMERGENCY because he knew that he could ask hams for
help" Not an assigned frequency, not a net, he wanted somebody LOUD that
he could communicate with. This guy didn't even have a license but he knew
what to do.
I made a long distance call to Ohio State Police and gave the location of
the wreck and then went back to contesting. In about 30 minutes again it
was "Breaker Breaker" and the trucker came back on to tell me that police
and EMS were on the scene and things were being taken care, and a big thanks
from him.
I think that it is a good point that in the event of a really true emergency
that many contesters have a lot to offer and at the top of the list is BIG
SIGNALS. It would be interesting if we could know if those folks really in
need of help would go to the antenna in the attic group on some special
frequency or if they would select a BIG signal contest station they could
really hear well.....
A point to ponder.....
Bryan W5KFT
_______________________________________________
CQ-Contest mailing list
CQ-Contest@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
|