Ham Radio Help Desk

My latest ARRL renewal came with the usual free gift. This time I selected the “Emergency Communication Handbook.” I made a promise to the fifteen or so EmComm organizations that made an appearance during the Haiti tragedy to look at EmComm again with an open eye resulting in the ordering of this book.

Fair enough.

I was glad to order this book to see how EmComm might be done from a well organized perspective. I sat down one evening and opened it up. Here is the first sentence…
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Regular readers of Ham Help Desk know my general lack of confidence in the volunteer emergency communications efforts.

Thankfully amateurs are documenting good examples of helpful communications on YouTube.

This one will make you proud…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqaKzIkyBug

Thank you operators. We really needed to hear this positive example.

Prayers go out to the folks in Haiti who are living in the aftermath of that earthquake.

Amateur Radio Operators seem to be geared up to provide some form of assistance.

The Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network (SATERN) organization is managing nets…

“Full Alert Level DELTA III for Haiti Earthquake Emergency. All nets active. 14.265 MHz Primary Daytime. 7265 and 3977.7 kHz evening and night.”

We can only hope and pray these good intentions result in useful deeds accomplished.

We should all listen in on the net frequencies above to see for ourselves how amateur radio may help the situation. I will be tuning in.

Meanwhile, I will also be sending some cash to relief organizations who are clearly going to need some resources quick.

Early one November morning an amateur radio operator was patiently waiting for morning to break in his tree stand in Rappahannock County, Virginia to get in another chance at a deer. Then tragedy. The tree stand broke sending him down to the ground and, we are not sure how, onto a board with nails leaving him near motionless with six nails in his back.
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An interesting article appears in the October issue of World Radio Magazine. The author of the regular EmComm section told the readers good bye as he does not intend to write about Emergency Communications in the context of Amateur Radio any more.
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