[TowerTalk] Great press for Ham Radio

Mon Jan 3 13:27:34 EST 2005

They also were recorded in emergency QSO mode and broadcast on the BBC 
World Service last night (EST).

73, Joe

Todd Ruby wrote:

> Sorry if anyone thinks this is off topic but this kind of positive 
> press coverage for ham radio is well needed, deserved and appreciated. 
> Way to go VU2RBI es mni tnx!
>
> de
> WB2ZAB
> todd
>
> washingtonpost.com
> Wave of Destruction, Wave of Salvation
> Ham Radio Operator on a Chance Visit to a Remote Indian Island Becomes 
> a Lifeline
>
>  By Rama Lakshmi
>  Special to The Washington Post
>  Sunday, January 2, 2005; Page D01
>
>  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."
>
>  © 2005 The Washington Post Company  
>
>  
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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