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
Dayton Hamvention 2015 Award Nominations Due by January 16, 2015! Read Full Article in ARRL.org: Read more
The July issue of Digital QST is now available for viewing on your desktop or laptop. Click here to view the issue. It is also available for reading o... Read more
As a beta test, the popular Reverse Beacon Network (RBN) has announced that it’s now offering a separate telnet feed for FT8 spots (telnet.reversebeac... Read more
TYT MD-2017 Features 3000 Channels 400-480MHz UHF Frequencies 136-174MHz VHF Frequencies Built-in CTCSS/DCS (Analog Mode) 5W/1W Output Power Repeater... Read more
Washoe County, Nevada, ARES was among the disaster response groups honored by the Washoe County Board of Commissioners on February 21. A Board proclam... Read more
“My BITX-40 40 meter SSB QRP transceiver kit has arrived from India. This kit isells for $59 including shipping. My kit took 17 days to arrive f... Read more
This video is targeted towards new HF operators who are getting on the air for the first time. It discusses some of the abbreviation used on the HF ba... Read more
Ultra Wide-band Coverage SDR Receiver MK3 • Full coverage reception form 100KHz to 2GHz SDR • Independent antenna inputs for Shortwave and VHF • USB c... Read more
The PSDR 2.5 PCBs came back and look great (they are a little more orange than red though, what’s up with that?) As I explained in the video, I... Read more
Specifications Covers 144-148 and 430-450 MHz transmit with 118-524 MHz (Band A) 136-524 MHz and 800-1300 MHz (Band B) less cellular receive Dual rece... Read more
“We (Ernoe DK2AMM, Guenter DL2AWG, Hans DL6JGN and Ron PA3EWP) are glad to inform you that our group will be on from the Republic of Naur... Read more
“Alright. Enough jib-jab. Here are the notable changes in 0.6: * Version 0.6 is not backwards compatible with 0.5 so you should upgrade ASAP. *... Read more
RFinder has worked with the DMR network Brandmeister to create new usability enhancements. The new dashboard just released includes coverage maps gene... Read more
More
Dayton Hamvention 2015 Award Nominations Due by January 16, 2015!
The July Issue of Digital QST is Now Available!
Reverse Beacon Network Beta Testing Separate Spot Stream for FT8
TYT MD-2017 Dual Band DMR Digital Radio Unboxing
Nevada ARES Team Honored
BITX-40 Unboxing by K7AGE
Ham Radio Tutorial – HF Operating “Lingo” by N7TFP
Ultra Wide-band Coverage SDR Receiver MK3
PortableSDR 2.5 Debut!
Kenwood TM-D710GA
C21EU – Nauru DXpedition 2015
New version of FT8CALL released
RFinder – The World Wide Repeater Directory kicks BrandMeister up a notch. DMR without CodePlugs!
Warning: file_get_contents(https://plusone.google.com/_/+1/fastbutton?url=https%3A%2F%2Fqrznow.com%2Fthe-amateur-radio-operators-preparing-for-the-worst%2F): failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found in /home/qrznow/public_html/wp-content/themes/goodnews5/framework/functions/posts_share.php on line 151
