Years ago, there was a phone outage on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. That was not an uncommon occurrence. This time a man’s wife collapsed, she was unconscious on the floor. He was a ham though grabbed his radio and made a call. I was monitoring outside the outage area. I was able to take his information and use the phone to get paramedics dispatched. This is one of many emergency messages that I have relayed as well as being involved with fires, protests, search and rescue, crime scene containment’s, and even 9/11. Sometimes it is just the stranded motorist in a cell phone dead zone.
More recently my daughter (KJ6HRW) and I were in the forest. We came across a pickup truck at a recreation area with a child locked in. He was crying and screaming for his mommy. We looked around for anybody that might belong to that truck. Not finding anyone I used my PA (loud enough to echo of the canyon walls) but still no response from anyone. Several repeaters had nobody answer. I finally got an answer on one, but the person had no idea where the San Gabriel river was, let alone the west fork. I found out later he was in New Jersey and had answered on an internet link. He was trying to be helpful. I finally had to resort to driving to a ranger station to report the problem. Unfortunately this also is not an isolated incident and has been more prevalent in recent years that when I am out on the edge, off the grid, there is nobody able or willing to answer the call.
Most recently we have a series of storms in Southern California. There has been rain and flooding. The mountain roads are closed because of snow as low as 1200 feet. People are stranded in the mountains. There have been sink and flash floods. Because of my job (https://mra-raycom.com) I monitor parts of the public infrastructure and have seen Internet, power and cell phones going off and on in various areas around Southern California. So I went to the emergency frequencies to see what what might be going on, no answer. I started scanning, no activity. Posted to the Internet, nobody knows of a net going on. I switched to HF (40 meter) and found a station 140 miles away, just chatting. Now with my experiences, I start think of the person that could be sitting out there off the grid, with nobody to answer the call.
I would like to do something about this. Now there are those today who, rather aggressively say “ham radio is just a hobby”. It may be for them, but here is an excerpt from part 97.
ยง 97.1 Basis and purpose.
The rules and regulations in this part are designed to provide an amateur radio service having a fundamental purpose as expressed in the following principles:
(a) Recognition and enhancement of the value of the amateur service to the public as a voluntary noncommercial communication service, particularly with respect to providing emergency communications.
There are many people now that just assume somebody else will take care of a problem. They watch on the news, or change to the game. They drive by on the road assuming somebody else will stop. We also have a number of emergency groups which actively discourage members from doing anything. That is probably due to agency concerns over liability. I am a believer in public service (Wimachtendienk Wingolauchsik Witahemui) though. I am the one who stops and helps. However, for those that are self serving, we have been granted the use of a lot of frequency space, though we are a minority. There are people that want that spectrum. If amateur radio becomes only a plaything for a few, then what will you say to congress when they want to reallocate the space to someone who will pay more?
There are also those who say there is nothing we can do, but in my story above that is not true. We can relay message in and out of communications dead zones. Most communications systems now are based on infrastructure which can be, and is routinely damaged. It takes people with an understanding of it to bypass the gaps and improvise.
What can we do? We don’t need to wait for a phone call (they may not be working) or permission to go on the air. We are already licensed to do so. My group has a repeater with backup power, plus a backup repeater on a different mountain top. The footprint is the Los Angeles basin, down the coast towards San Diego and up towards Santa Barbara. We reach in to parts of Riverside and San Bernardino. I have training courses for those that are less experienced or unsure of what they should do (emergency training is not part of the license). What you can add:
- Listen. If someone needs assistance that you can provide, help out. That may be relaying a message from the radio to the phone or email.
- Provide information. This could road conditions, damage reports, etc.
- Provide contacts. Do you have the means to relay information that we collect to emergency responders or management agencies?
- Help expand coverage. Do you have HF, perhaps NVIS ability? Maybe a repeater on the edge of our footprint that could be linked?
- Want to become a ham? Soon I will be putting together a class. Maybe you are interested in radio or electronics. Maybe you are interested in Emergency prep. Maybe you just want someone to chat with on a long freeway drive.
- Get other people to help. The more people in a net, the more info we have and the more connection points.
- If an incident happens, get on the air.
- Bring other people to the net
If you want to help, send me a contact. We will go from there. We may be able to help you, or you may be able to help us. You can be new or experienced, HT, mobile or base station.
