That warm and fuzzy feeling....

[kc2ifr]

Guy, W1FRM sent this to me and I just had to share it with you guys.......

MONROE, La. -- In a shelter here, 300 miles north of New Orleans, Theo McDaniel took his plight to a young man fiddling with a clunky, outdated-looking radio.

Mr. McDaniel, a 25-year-old barber, had evacuated New Orleans with his wife and two small children more than a week ago and since then had had no contact with his brother or his aunt. The last he heard, his 42-year-old aunt was clinging to her roof.

"We've got to get a message down there to help them," he said. The man at the radio sent the information to the emergency-operations center across town, which relayed it to rescue units in New Orleans. Later in the weekend, Mr. McDaniel learned that food and water were on the way to his trapped brother and his brother's young family. He had heard nothing about his aunt.

With Hurricane Katrina having knocked out nearly all the high-end emergency communications gear, 911 centers, cellphone towers and normal fixed phone lines in its path, ham-radio operators have begun to fill the information vacuum. "Right now, 99.9% of normal communications in the affected region is nonexistent," says David Gore, the man operating the ham radio in the Monroe shelter. "That's where we come in."

In an age of high-tech, real-time gadgetry, it's the decidedly unsexy ham radio -- whose technology has changed little since World War II -- that is in high demand in ravaged New Orleans and environs. The Red Cross issued a request for about 500 amateur radio operators -- known as "hams" -- for the 260 shelters it is erecting in the area. The American Radio Relay League, a national association of ham-radio operators, has been deluged with requests to find people in the region. The U.S. Coast Guard is looking for hams to help with its relief efforts.

Ham radios, battery operated, work well when others don't in part because they are simple. Each operator acts as his own base station, requiring only his radio and about 50 feet of fence wire to transmit messages thousands of miles. Ham radios can send messages on multiple channels and in myriad ways, including Morse code, microwave frequencies and even email.

Then there are the ham-radio operators themselves, a band of radio enthusiasts who spend hours jabbering with each other even during normal times. They are often the first to get messages in and out of disaster areas, in part because they are everywhere. (The ARRL estimates there are 250,000 licensed hams in the U.S.) Sometimes they are the only source of information in the first hours following a disaster. "No matter how good the homeland-security system is, it will be overwhelmed," says Thomas Leggett, a retired mill worker manning a ham radio in the operations center here. "You don't hear about us, but we are there."

Slidell, a town 30 miles northeast of New Orleans, was directly hit by the hurricane and remains virtually cut off from the outside world. One of the few, if not the only, communications links is Michael King, a retired Navy captain, operating a ham radio out of a Slidell hospital.

"How are you holding up, Mike?" asked Sharon Riviere into a ham-radio microphone at Monroe's operations center. She and her husband, Ron, who is the president of the Slidell ham-radio club, had evacuated before the storm to the home of some fellow ham-radio enthusiasts in Monroe. She said Mr. King had been working 20-hour days since the storm hit.

Crackling static and odd, garbled sounds followed her question to Mr. King. Then he replied: "It's total devastation here. I've got 18 feet of water at my house. Johnny's Café down there has water up to its roof."

Ms. Riviere asked about her own home, which is not far from Mr. King's. "It's full of mud," Mr. King replied. "Looks like someone's been slugging it out in there."

Ham radios are often most effective as one link in a chain of communication devices. Early last week, someone trapped with 15 people on a roof of a New Orleans home tried unsuccessfully to get through to a 911 center on his cellphone. He was able to call a relative in Baton Rouge, who in turn called another relative, Sybil Hayes, in Broken Arrow, Okla. Ms. Hayes, whose 81-year-old aunt was among those stranded on the New Orleans roof, then called the Red Cross in Broken Arrow, which handed the message to its affiliated ham-radio operator, Ben Joplin.

Via stations in Oregon, Idaho and Louisiana, Mr. Joplin got the message to rescue workers who were able to save the 15 people on the roof, according to the ARRL, based in Newington, Conn. "We are like the Pony Express," says the 26-year-old Mr. Gore, wearing black cowboy boots. "One way or the other, even by hand, we will get you the message."

Mr. Gore, who is in charge of the northeastern district of Louisiana for the Amateur Radio Emergency Service, has spent a lot of time the past week at the Monroe shelter, helping evacuees try to track missing friends and relatives.

Last Monday, Danita Alexander of Violet, La., came to a ham operator in the Monroe shelter asking about her 96-year-old grandfather, Willie Bright, who had been in a nursing home in New Orleans. The next day, she got word back from a ham operator that he had been safely transferred to a shelter near New Orleans. "We can't do enough of these," says Mark Ketchell, who runs the ARES branch in Monroe.

Nevertheless, the ham-radio community feels under threat. Telecom companies want to deliver broadband Internet connections over power lines, which ham-radio operators say distorts communications in the surrounding area. Since hams are "amateurs," there is little lobbying money to fight such changes, they add.

The hams also get little respect from telecommunications-equipment companies, such as Motorola Inc. "Something is better than nothing, that's right," says Jim Screeden, who runs all of Motorola's repair teams in the field for its emergency-response business. "But ham radios are pretty close to nothing." Mr. Screeden says ham radios can take a long time to relay messages and work essentially as "party lines," with multiple parties talking at once. Says Mr. Leggett at the Monroe operations center: "We are the unwanted stepchild. But when the s- hits the fan, who are you going to call?"

[W1UJR]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9228945/

Ham
By Gary Krakow
Columnist
MSNBC
Updated: 6:12 p.m. ET Sept. 6, 2005

   
Gary Krakow
Columnist
• E-mail

With telephones down and wireless service disrupted, at least one group of people did manage last week to use technology to come to the rescue of those in need.

Often unsung, amateur radio operators regularly assist in emergency situations. Hurricane Katrina was no exception. For the past week, operators of amateur, or ham, radio have been instrumental in helping residents in the hardest hit areas, including saving stranded flood victims in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Public service has always been a large part of being an amateur radio operator. All operators, who use two-way radios on special frequencies set aside for amateur use, must be tested and licensed by the federal government, which then issues them a unique call sign. (Mine is W2GSK.)

Ham operators communicate using voice, computers, televisions and Morse code (the original digital communication mode.)  Some hams bounce their signals off the upper regions of the atmosphere, so they can talk with hams on the other side of the world; others use satellites. Many use short-range, handheld radios that fit in their pockets.

When disaster strikes, ham networks spring into action. The Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) consists of licensed amateurs who have voluntarily registered their qualifications and equipment for communications duty in the public service.

In this disaster a number of ham emergency stations and networks have been involved in providing information about this disaster – from WX4NHC, the amateur radio station at the National Hurricane Center to the Hurricane Watch Net, the Waterway Net, Skywarn and the Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network (SATERN).

On Monday, Aug. 29, a call for help involving a combination of cell telephone calls and amateur radio led to the rescue of 15 people stranded by floodwaters on the roof of a house in New Orleans. Unable to get through an overloaded 911 system, one of those stranded called a relative in Baton Rouge. That person called another relative, who called the local American Red Cross.

Using that Red Cross chapter’s amateur radio station, Ben Joplin, WB5VST, was able to relay a request for help on the SATERN network via Russ Fillinger, W7LXR, in Oregon, and Rick Cain, W7KB, in Utah back to Louisiana, where emergency personnel were alerted. They rescued the 15 people and got them to a shelter.

Such rescues were repeated over and over again. Another ham was part of the mix that same Monday when he heard over the same Salvation Army emergency network of a family of five trapped in an attic in Diamond Head, La. The family used a cell phone to call out.  Bob Rathbone, AG4ZG, in Tampa, says he checked the address on a map and determined it was in an area struck by a storm surge.

He called the Coast Guard search-and-rescue station in Clearwater, explained the situation and relayed the information. At this point, the Coast Guard office in New Orleans was out of commission. An hour later he received a return call from the South Haven Sheriff’s Department in Louisiana, which informed him a rescue operation was under way.

Another search-and-rescue operation involved two adults and a child stuck on a roof. The person was able to send a text message from a cell phone to a family member in Michigan. Once again, the Coast Guard handled the call.

Relief work is not just relegated to monitoring radios for distress calls. The organization representing amateur radio operators, The American Radio Relay League or ARRL, now is seeking emergency volunteers to help supplement communication for American Red Cross feeding and sheltering operations in Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle — as many as 200 locations in all.

Hams who wish to volunteer their time and services should contact the Hurricane Katrina volunteer registration and message traffic database.

And, for the first time, the federal government will help hams help others. The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) will provide a $100,000 grant supplement to ARRL to support its emergency communication operators in states affected by Hurricane Katrina. The grant will help to fund what is being termed “Ham Aid,” a new program to support amateur radio volunteers deployed in the field in disaster-stricken areas.

One last note for ham operators in the stricken area: The FCC has announced that it’s extending amateur license renewal deadlines until October 31, 2005.

[W3LSN]

Nice to see the hobby get some favorable press, and to see hams come through in a time of need.

The article mentions Slidell, LA which is the home of Slidell Radio, the historic and once legendary maritime coast station WNU once owned by the Tropical Radio and Telegraph Company. They're actually located in nearby Pearl River, with a substantial antenna farm, but I digress. Apparently the station was blown away in the hurricane and they are off the air.

For the last several years WNU has simply been a node in the HF data network of Globe Wireless connecting ships to land via SITOR and CLOVER. But until very recently it was one of North America's last "CW Superstations" handling CW and SITOR traffic from mariners over a good chunk of the globe. I understand that that the site has been run by remote control from the company HQ near San Francisco for many years, but I wonder if they would still be on the air and passing emergency traffic if it were locally operated.

73, Jim
WA2AJM/3

...next door to Gaithersburg, MD

Slidell, a town 30 miles northeast of New Orleans, was directly hit by the hurricane and remains virtually cut off from the outside world. One of the few, if not the only, communications links is Michael King, a retired Navy captain, operating a ham radio out of a Slidell hospital.

[John Holotko]

Maybe some of this favorable press will make people  think twice about things like BPL Then again on second thought, probably not.

[W1UJR]

Maybe some of this favorable press will make people  think twice about things like BPL Then again on second thought, probably not.

Naw, its all Bush's fault...again.

[VA3ES - Piss-Weak Ed]

The hams also get little respect from telecommunications-equipment companies, such as Motorola Inc. "Something is better than nothing, that's right," says Jim Screeden, who runs all of Motorola's repair teams in the field for its emergency-response business. "But ham radios are pretty close to nothing." Mr. Screeden says ham radios can take a long time to relay messages and work essentially as "party lines," with multiple parties talking at once.

Jim Screeden can kiss my ass.

[wa2zdy]

Even in the face of the obvious, the Motorola guy is going to say what he said. What a doofus.

[w3jn]

Motorola's computerized trunking radio system did SO WELL in New Orleans. 

How many times have I heard the police chief griping he has NO radio comms whatever?

[WA1GFZ]

I worked for mot for a couple years. They were the biggest JS artests I have ever seen. Quality control...my motto was "a crappy install guaranteed many a service call" I've seen them use coax with brown shield on $400 K trunking systems then play stupid when the customer complained about static.
3:1 VSWR on an antenna install was ok fine. I was told that ment a new final next year. Sure put the transmitter in the 140 segree attic...it wont drift.
Coming from mil electronics was a shock I couldn't recover from so got out asap.  they were living on their name and the radios became real crap when out sourced to outside the US. The dumber the customer the more they got screwed.