[CQ-Contest] Real emergencies

[N7MAL]

NO  NO  NO 
While what W5KFT did was, maybe, morally correct what he did was very, very, illegal. The citation would probably be several pages long.
1. He knowingly communicated with an unlicensed station.
2. He knowingly communicated with an unlicensed station who was using a radio, by his own admission, not approved for use in the Amateur Radio service.
etc etc etc

Unless an emergency is declared by the appropriate authorities it is not up to an individual amateur radio operator to decide, on his own, that something is an emergency and begin non-amateur communications. There are several emergencies every year where amateur radio is requested to get involved. Frequencies are set aside, by the emergency declaration, for handling, primarily, health & welfare traffic always between licensed stations.

These situations are well defined in the regulations and stations like NN2NN & W5KFT, while questionably performing an admirable service, are violating the regulations and are subjecting themselves to fines and possibly losing their licenses.



MAL           N7MAL
BULLHEAD CITY, AZ
http://www.ctaz.com/~suzyq/N7mal.htm


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: W0uo at cs.com 
  To: "Bryan W5KFT" ; cq-contest at contesting.com 
  Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 18:50
  Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Real emergencies


  Bryan

  Well Said

  Jim W0UO/5


  "Bryan W5KFT" <w5kft at nts-online.net> wrote:

  >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
  >
  >
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