Amateur radio is a hobby and has over 600,000 radio
operators in the USA alone. The hobby is about communications and various ways
of communicating via radio waves.
What most people do not know about the hobby and the people
that are operators is that they are one of the most used groups in a disaster
situation.
The amateur radio community has networks set up all over the
world that can be activated quickly if there is a disaster anywhere in the
world. Amateurs worked weeks at the site of 9-1-1 in New York side by side with
rescue crews supplying communications.
When there is a disaster such as hurricanes or tornadoes or
the likes of 9-1-1 then one of the first things to go away is the local
communications. Phones go down and electricity and the only thing left is
amateur radio operators that can operate from a battery and a piece of wire for
an antenna.
Many operators were involved this last year in all the
hurricanes that we had. The amateurs had hurricane watch nets up all over the
world just watching and reporting the advance of these storms. Once these
storms passed the radio operators set up nets to pass traffic for rescue groups
as well as passing health and welfare traffic to people trying the get in touch
with relatives in the stricken area. It is always great to get a message out to
someone that says we are ok and we are alive.
Amateur radio operators are the eyes of the National Weather
Service. If you do not believe that then just ask someone that works for the
weather service. Every National Weather Service office in the USA has amateur
radio operators on duty any time that there are storms in the area. The weather
service does have a great radar but the radar cannot see the storms like human
eyes can.
Somewhere in this country, there are amateur operators
watching storms and reporting what they see to the National Weather Service
almost any time of the day and night. These radio operators have been trained
in storm watching so that they will be able to send reports that the weather
service that can used immediately. From that point, all the reported storm data
goes out to weather radio and local radio and TV stations for broadcast to the
public.
These amateur radio operators may or may not be heroes but
they are always there when needed to warn the public of danger. The kicker to
all this is that the operators buy all their own radio equipment and give their
time to keep the public safe.
Always doing the job in the background at no cost to the
public. Usually, this service gets no recognition for saving lives. Heroes? You
decide.
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