Ham radio operators that train with ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Services) and RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Services) do so for many reasons. One is to use their skills and equipment when others are in need. While the training can be a lot of fun, it is also quite serious. Lives could depend on it. Take Skywarn operations (severe storm spotting in ham radio networks organized usually by county) for example. Or when assisting with a hurricane, flooding, etc.. In fact, many hams train in disaster assessment. I recently had the opportunity to use some of my ham radio training along with ARES and RACES training to help my community.
I am Jon Kreski, AB9NN – AB9NN is my FCC Call sign. NO – NOT a CB handle thank you very much. In ham radio land, we are required by law to identify our transmissions every so often with our FCC call signs. If this sounds strange, listen to any commercial radio or TV station. You will find that they have similar rules. They build their ID’s into commercials. We don’t advertise.
After work one night in Appleton, Wisconsin I did some severe storm spotting from my home. Two particular storms come time mind. Both had follow-up requests after them. After the first one a request was made by the Outagamie County Ememrgency Manager to do a quick survey of damage in the general area. What sort of damage were we seeing near our homes? The question to be answered was what response, if any, would be needed. For this event I activated my APRS tracker – that allows anyone with access to http://APRS.FI to track anyone with APRS tracking active. These are generally ham radio operators, although you can also see weather stations on the network (home weather stations usually). I took a drive around my section of the Appleton, Wisconsin community and quickly located 5 – 6 instances of tops of trees toppled over and into streets, etc.. It was a “Nice Little Disaster” in that – from what I could see – no one got hurt. I even met another ham radio operator on my drive through the area.
After the second storm a few weeks later our group was requested to provide emergency communications for the Red Cross operating out of the Appleton, Wisconsin office. In this instance, I grabbed my portable ham radio (we call them HT’s – short for “handy talkie” – so named because they are handy to have around the house even if we are not walking) and headed for the Red Cross headquarters building. There I was met by a very professional, dedicated group of people that quickly briefed me on the situation and what I could do to help them and others in the community. This again would turn out to be a “Nice Little Disaster”.
When storms had passed through the Appleton, Wisconsin general area there had been flooding in a small town north of the city proper. Stan, K9STN, was dispatched to work in the flooded area. The Red Cross from Appleton, Wisconsin had established a shelter to house and feed those that were either dislocated by the flooding or were helping the civil authorities with the flooding, traffic control, etc.. We virtually instantly deployed a high quality communications link and were able to pass required messages. Again, no one was hurt in this disaster. In a small town, the fire department actually pumped water out of residents basements for them which was really nice for them. I’m not sure that happens in most cities!
So these are a few of the sorts of activities that your local ham radio operators conduct these days. I will continue to work with the groups of people that I have been working with as I find the traning educational, fun and rewarding. Actual deployments were very much like the training scenarios. And it is nice to have additional real-world “Nice Little Disasters” to work in so we will feel more comfortable in larger disasters.
Jon Kreski, AB9NN
http://www.HamRadioResources.com
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