Imagine there’s been a natural disaster in your area. You’ve lost power,
it’s impossible to get in your car and drive somewhere safe, and most
importantly, the cell towers are down. How will you get in contact with
friends and family to tell them you’re alright? That’s where amateur radio
operators come in.
“In Puerto Rico back in Maria, amateur radio became, in a military analogy,
the light infantry. We could get into a community, establish communication
and at least get some information travelling out of that location,” says Joe
Bassett, a ham radio operator.
He volunteered with 21 other people to provide communications support in
Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017. The volunteers helped with many
aspects of disaster recovery. Andy Anderson was another volunteer.
“I was assigned to the Guajataca area, the Guajataca dam, particularly
because the dam was going to break and they needed somebody up there for
safety to communicate with the power company that owned the dam and to the
emergency offices in San Juan to get ready,” he says.
Puerto Rico is just one example where amateur radio stepped in and helped
with disaster recovery. You’ll find dedicated volunteers providing support
in emergencies all over the country.
Robb Mayberry is with the Office of Emergency Services in California. He
says that California works with amateur radio groups frequently, most
recently during the Ridgecrest earthquake in July.
“Even though communication lines didn’t necessarily go down," he says, "we
did have some activity with the amateur radio operators in the field that
got on there and started giving us information about what they were seeing
out in the area.”
The Jackson County Amateur Radio Emergency Service, or JC ARES, practices
their radio skills weekly to prepare for the next time disaster strikes. The
group’s Steve Bosbach says lots of people get involved with amateur radio
for the fun of it, but end up finding ways to help their community.
“I’ve been a ham since 1978 and have done most of the stuff that hams like
to do. Working long distance and collecting QSL cards that commemorate the
contact,” he says. “But now I’m giving back to the community again, using
what I know to help out the communiGroups such as JC ARES are what connects ham radio operators with emergency
services organizations. Agencies such as California OES will be in contact
with ham radio emergency groups to find amateur radio operators willing to
help out in disasters.
You might think ham radio is a dying form of communication, but it’s
actually stronger than it’s ever been. There
are more licensed ham radio operators in the US than ever before, and
that number continues to grow.
An obstacle faced by the ham community in working together is the
differences in training among the hundreds of community groups. Bassett says
he saw this first hand in Puerto Rico.
“Say we had someone up there in the Pacific Northwest that had been trained
in emergency operations. And then you have myself who does the training for
here in Clay County in Florida,” he says. “Both procedures and protocols
used may be perfectly valid and beneficial in a disaster. But, if they’re
not the same procedures, it can cause conflict and difficulty and unneeded
obstacles.”
Bassett says that groups should work with national organizations like the
Amateur Radio Relay League to develop centralized training to make it easier
for these groups to work together.
If you want to get licensed as a radio operator, many groups hold frequent
trainings. But even if you don’t want to enter the world of amateur radio,
they can still offer some great advice about what to do in a disaster. Steve
Bosbach with JC ARES offers a tip about what you can do if your cell phone
calls are dropping during a disaster: switch to text.
“Text will just be put in a queue and it’ll go out when they find room,” he
says “But if you’re trying to make a direct voice contact it’ll just jam
up.”
Bosbach hopes more people will get involved with their local emergency
services organization. By using their knowledge and skills to help out their
communities, these hobbyists can have some fun at the same time.
