In natural or man-made disasters, ham-radio enthusiasts put their hobby to work.
There’s a sense of urgency in the air at a Virginia nuclear power plant. Everything within at least a five-mile radius is at immediate risk due to a critical meltdown. One of the emergency responders opens the envelope she’s holding, scans its contents, and announces the bad news: “We just lost 911 and the cell towers are overloaded.”
There are some groans, but the team of amateur radio operators knew this was a possibility, and they’re prepared. They have their radios at the ready to coordinate evacuations, making sure that no shelters are overwhelmed and that evacuees arrive at the right locations. Two detach themselves from the rest and make their way over to the lead coordinator. They’re acting as the points of contact for all emergency services, which means they’re responsible for relaying information about everything from fires to urgent medical care to illegal activities.
It’s no small task, especially when there’s a nuclear meltdown in the background, but this isn’t the first time these radio operators have tackled a problem of this scale: Similar disasters happen every two years, after all. This time, it’s an earthquake that caused a cooling tower to fail. Sometimes it’s a terrorist attack, or perhaps a hurricane. Fortunately, none of these are real disasters: They’re Simulated Emergency Tests (SET), mock disasters that radio-operator groups use to show the typical emergency players—police, the Red Cross, FEMA—that when the worst happens, these hobbyists can be an essential part of the response…READ MORE
Ville, PY2ZEA will be active from Fernando de Noronha as PW0FM between March 15-22, 2016. Limited activity on HF bands, CW/SSB. No RTTY. QSL via OH0XX... Read more
The ARRL Board of Directors, committees, and Headquarters administrative staff are continuing efforts to enhance the venerable Amateur Radio Emergency... Read more
Log WEB Upload – ONLY – at ua9qcq.com 1. The Associazione Radioamatori Italiani (A.R.I.) has the honour of inviting radio amateurs... Read more
HOLYLAND CONTEST 2016 Friday 15 of April 21.00UTC – Saturday 16 of April 2016 21.00UTC The Aim: To promote contacts between Radio Amateurs aroun... Read more
HASTINGS, Neb. (KSNB) – With a national shortage of personal protective equipment for healthcare workers, people are doing what they can to fulf... Read more
Ham Radio Deluxe HRD Software, LLC is pleased to announce the release of Ham Radio Deluxe version 6.2.10; major upgrades and fixes included. The HRD... Read more
A team from NBC News’ nascent digital news unit Left Field was in Hawaii to visit with some radio amateurs to produce a report when the false nuclear... Read more
Icom IC-7850 Icom have released a firmware update for the IC-7850/7851 HF Amateur Radio transceivers. The firmware update improves the transmit audio... Read more
The FMRE National Emergency Net has activated on 7.060 MHz following a magnitude 7.1 earthquake in the central Mexico state of Puebla at 1814 UTC on T... Read more
Hurricane Watch Net (HWN) Manager Bobby Graves, KB5HAV, says the 2018 Atlantic Hurricane Season has been relatively quiet up until now, but September... Read more
Rod, K8RR and Mark, W8BBQ discuss the different amateur radio bands and frequencies including HF, UHF and VHF bands. http://www.arrl.org/band-plan B... Read more
“A Message from Mike, K7IR This is our first email newsletter. From the time we started the company 17 years ago, we’ve interacted with thousand... Read more
Product Overview The USRP N310 is a networked software defined radio that provides reliability and fault-tolerance for deployment in large scale and d... Read more
Xiegu X510 X5105 is a highly portable transceiver working at HF+6m band, with a built-in power output of 5W. Technical features: double-conver... Read more
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Icom IC-7850 /7851 Firmware Update (Version 1.11)
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![Xiegu X5105 HF+6m Transceiver [ First Pictures and Video ]](https://qrznow.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/15966008_1934328256795463_8871864002041353707_n-190x122.jpg)
Xiegu X5105 HF+6m Transceiver [ First Pictures and Video ]
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