Amateur Radio Operators - Heroes?
by Sintilia Miecevole
Published on this site: November 30th, 2005 - See
more articles from this month
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 a 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 storm 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.
Some where 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.
Host, Sintilia Miecevole has a comprehensive equipment
site at http://www.usesequipment.com
complete with information from sports, fitness, industrial,
contracting, rental, pool, spa and repair equipment to hospital,
hunting,heavy construction, leasing, tools, weight lifting and much
more. Be sure to visit http://www.usesequipment.com
|
