Using the Ham Radio as a lifeline

[sprite1741]

I came upon a house fully engulfed in the country one night after a night shift in the early 80's. I had my Advanced at the time and was listening to some old guys on the main 2m repeater in the nearby town. After breaking their qso and explaining what was happening, they refused to help, said it's not in their town and they and would not allow me to use the auto patch and went back to their qso. They were quite irritated that someone interfered with their qso. Now a days you can't get anyone to talk on a lot of repeaters. I would use a cell phone, and not trust ham radio for help, but you can try, just don't expect someone will be there or even care.

 

[N4GIX]

There are no fewer than twenty-eight 144, 220, and 440 repeaters here in NW Indiana. The odds of being able to get anyone to answer a call at any time are only slightly better than winning the Powerball Jackpot...

...seriously!

 

[MTS2000des]

A ham radio is like a rope: It only becomes a lifeline in the hands of a trained and prepared operator.

A lifeline and a noose are both pieces of rope. How the rope is used, makes the difference.

BINGO! We have a winner!

Equipment is only as valuable as the operator. Can ham radio be a lifeline? Sure, no different than CB, GMRS, FRS, social media, two cups and string, or semaphore for that matter.

It's all about the people. Amateur radio as a community can be a great resource if that community is comprised of individuals willing to be the "can-do" types who also know how to stay in their lanes.

 

[KR7CQ]

God help the person who finds himself with no other means of emergency aid other than ham radio. If you are traveling outside of cell range have a sat phone or beacon on hand.

 

[KD8DVR]

God help the person who finds himself with no other means of emergency aid other than ham radio. If you are traveling outside of cell range have a sat phone or beacon on hand.

Absolutely. At best, you'll find some Whacker that would have no clue in a "real" emergency.

AntiSquid Disclaimer: All comments are personal opinion only and may not imply actual fact.

 

[Rred]

Satphones and beacons are no panacea either. Yes, they are great. But look up the rescue of the boat "Rebel Heart" which took place in the Pacific about two years ago. Their carefully chosen emergency gear included a satphone. Except, the provider had cut off service to it, unknown to the owners, apparently because of a clerical mixup in the billing. Again, the infrastructure went down and a perfectly good tool became a paperweight.

Emergency beacons, either PRBs or EPIRBs, are great. But the inexpensive alternatives like SPOT or InReach require paid subscriptions and support from private companies. Iridium only exists now because the firm went bankrupt and the assets resold for a penny on the dollar. Whether the private firms can continue to stay in business is anyone's guess.

And the real PRBs and EPIRBs rely on a US-Russian consortium to monitor them, presumably the Russians won't say "p*ss off" and pull out. Whether users will be billed for non-emergency use (a flat tire twenty miles off the trailhead isn't an emergency, it is an inconvenience) is yet to be seen. You also have no choice in who the system contacts, and it can take over an hour for the system to process a message, and then there may be no local resources to dispatch for hours longer. Meanwhile, you have no confirmation that a signal has gone out, on the vast majority of the equipment.

So the magic boxes are incredible--but they're only perfect in the Hollywood movies.

 

[mmckenna]

Satphones and beacons are no panacea either. Yes, they are great. But look up the rescue of the boat "Rebel Heart" which took place in the Pacific about two years ago. Their carefully chosen emergency gear included a satphone. Except, the provider had cut off service to it, unknown to the owners, apparently because of a clerical mixup in the billing. Again, the infrastructure went down and a perfectly good tool became a paperweight.

I haven't looked up that specific case, but it's a real shame, but it rests on the "stupid user tricks". Iridium is constantly pestering users about making monthly test calls to help with operational familiarity and (likely) because the resellers of the service are so awful with billing.
Iridium has gone as far as to provide a free test number for this. Once a month we pull ours out at work and call in. Mainly that's for my comfort and to assure me our purchasing department hasn't just ignored the bill, or that the reseller is actually submitting the bill to our AP correctly.

Took me about a year to get the service reseller to properly submit the bill to our accounts payable group with the right purchase order number, right address, and understand that certain agencies have very protracted schedules for issuing checks.

 

[Rred]

I suspect Iridium's test policy may be partly in response to Rebel Heart. Which got tremendous international news coverage because PJ's were sent SO far offshore and literally dropped to the boat with no certainty it would remain afloat until a ship could take them off again.

In my hazy memory they were three weeks out of port when things got bad enough to call for a medevac and rescue, so calling "once a month" wouldn't necessarily have helped them, either. FWIW.

That's one advantage of the marine maritime networks and other "doesn't charge by the minute" solutions: If you check in daily, and after a couple of days someone asks "Has anyone heard from..." then there's a chance help will come looking for you, even if you can't call it in. (I know, you can set up a sked with the USCG, but how many phone calls can they make and take in a day?)

 

[reedeb]

Way back in the 90's I had just gotten my ticket.I had an ancient 2 mtr HT for a radio [pre cell phone] I happened across a head on collision with 5 injuries. I got on the HT and on a repeater I knew had nightly folks chit chatting. Broke in and told them what I were I was at and what was going on, In less then 10 minutes I had Fire EMS and Police there. They were amazed how the call got in. Many Fireman and EMS [as well as a few Police officers] got interested in ham radio.and to this day severa are hams and still keep the ticket.

 

[jbantennaman]

A fiend of mine is the county Representative for RACES and lives in a very remote location.
His neighbors were burning garbage on a windy day and caught his 20 acre field on fire.
He called the fire department by phone to tell them that the field was on fire.
I had just fixed a flat tire on his truck and I took his keys in the house.
His wife - who has Alzheimer's, got into their suburban and couldn't start it, because it had no keys.
The husband - who has Spinal Stenosis, drove their John Deere tractor out into the field to try to cut a fire line between their trailer and the field, got stuck in the middle of the fire.
I drove my truck to the edge of the property, saw that the wife was caught in the fire and the husband was in the middle of the fire.
The only repeater I could raise anyone was 65 miles away.
The operator I reached was computer illiterate - and a retired school teacher..
I had to explain to him how to use QRZ.com to find the address of the fire, call the county control for that county and explain to them the situation.
Then I had to run into the flames, get the wife out of the Suburban, into their F-350 pick up truck.
She was more worried about their dog then of her own safety.
I ended up driving the Suburban into the flames to safety - because the woman refused to get out of the truck.
The fire burned right up to the front porch of the trailer - where the Suburban was parked.

Luckily the tractor was Diesel and the homeowner - drove it thru the flames to safety.
I got him off the tractor, into the Suburban and I drove the tractor to the edge of the property to try to cut more fire lines.
By this time the fire department arrived and they used a nozzle atop the truck with a remote control to spray water directly onto the flames as they drove past the trailer.. It also had some type of water outlet that was pouring water along side of the truck - to keep it from catching on fire.

Because neither the landowner ham or myself was popular, the local community downplayed the whole thing and nothing was ever mentioned about it.
Most people would have gotten some type of award for saving their lives and recognition for heroic actions, but I didn't get any of that!

Hams are *******s, there are no real hams anymore.
It is all a buddy club.
If you are in the buddy club, you get a pat on the back, if you are not in the buddy club, you don't get anything at all!
The guys that refused to allow the operator to use the repeater for emergency communications, should have turned those operators in and those operators should have been reprimanded.

 

[KD8DVR]

A lot of people nowadays are "cbers with a call sign" The brotherhood is gone. Operating practices are worsening. I rarely get on the air anymore.

AntiSquid Disclaimer: All posted content is personal opinion only and may not imply fact or accusation.

 

[K5MPH]

A lot of people nowadays are "cbers with a call sign" The brotherhood is gone. Operating practices are worsening. I rarely get on the air anymore.

AntiSquid Disclaimer: All posted content is personal opinion only and may not imply fact or accusation.

I call them Appliance Hams (Glorified C.B. Operators) they just memorize the test so they can talk on HF radio.....

 

[K7MEM]

Took me about a year to get the service reseller to properly submit the bill to our accounts payable group with the right purchase order number, right address, and understand that certain agencies have very protracted schedules for issuing checks.

That paragraph brought up an old memory. Some time in the 80's I was managing the Computer Aided Engineering network where I worked. It was a lab filled with a variety of Sun Unix systems where we hosted the engineering software. The software was very expensive. The yearly maintenance for one particular vendor, Cadence, was over $100,000. That was only 15% of the initial cost of the software. When the bill was paid, we were sent a certificate, with access codes and the latest release of the software. This guaranteed us a patch, in 24 hours, for any bug that was found.

Receiving the software was easy. The software distribution was on large streaming cassette cartridges, so everything was in a box. But the receiving department was at a loss as to how to receive "maintenance". It was only a piece of paper. It was a constant battle trying to assure accounting that we actually received "maintenance".

Finally, the vendor, in a stroke of genius, started sending the maintenance certificate in a box labeled "Maintenance". After that, the receiving department had no problem receiving the maintenance and accounting never bothered us any more.

Martin - K7MEM

 

[TheSpaceMann]

A lot of people nowadays are "cbers with a call sign" The brotherhood is gone. Operating practices are worsening. I rarely get on the air anymore.

AntiSquid Disclaimer: All posted content is personal opinion only and may not imply fact or accusation.

Good point! If you listen on certain HF frequencies (and 2 meter repeaters), you'll hear the exact same types of conversations, jamming and language that was heard on the CB channels over 30 years ago.

 

[mmckenna]

That paragraph brought up an old memory.
Finally, the vendor, in a stroke of genius, started sending the maintenance certificate in a box labeled "Maintenance". After that, the receiving department had no problem receiving the maintenance and accounting never bothered us any more.

Martin - K7MEM

Sounds very familiar. I went through the same thing for years, we finally hired our own purchasing/shipping/receiving guy. He understands how it works and finds creative ways of keeping the larger purchasing department satisfied.

Funny thing is that occasionally someone from the larger purchasing group will show up and want to do a surprise inventory. That's always a bit humorous. They once wanted to see that an item was properly tagged and that it matched the serial number. It was a tower top amplifier. I took her to the site and handed her my climbing harness. For some reason she hasn't returned.

 

[w1bp]

I once handled an emergency call.

I was monitoring a repeater and a couple of hams were having a QSO. A friend of mine who is a ham with a call from another call district broke in an reported that he and his girlfriend had rolled over their Jeep in a rural area and needed help. He was somewhat stressed and gave his location based on a street and a town, but incorrectly identified the name of the street. I knew they were out there and was familiar with the area and knew what he meant. This was about 20 years ago and they didn't have cell phones. There might not have been cell service at that location back then, it was quite rural.

The two old-timer hams didn't believe the call because of the error in the street name and the KC2 call sign (we were in the W1 call sign district), I broke in and handled the traffic. When I had concluded, one of the old timers told me he thought this was a hoax and I shouldn't have handled the call. I gave him my call sign and told him if he thought it was a hoax, he could report it to the FCC.

While there are many of us that are willing to help, many hams are cranky old men who don't like variations from the norm.

Whether or not you can get an emergency call through ham radio is based on luck and who the ham is at the other end.

My opinion on the "lifeline" question is that ham radio is good for things like welfare message traffic, Skywarn nets and public service communications at road races. I wouldn't use it as my only method of calling for emergency help.

 

[mmckenna]

FCC Rule 97.1, the VERY FIRST RULE in the amateur radio parts says:

(a) Recognition and enhancement of the value of the amateur service to the public as a voluntary noncommercial communication service, particularly with respect to providing emergency communications.

The Amateur radio community (read: ARRL) leans on this a lot of justifying the existence of the hobby. Some amateurs take this part of the rules to heart and do a good job.

Most of them seem to completely ignore it. Further still, I'd be willing to bet my next paycheck that 95% (or more) of amateur radio operators have never even cracked open the FCC rules regarding amateur radio.

I fully agree, glorified CB service.

I'm an amateur, have been for almost 30 years now. I'm disappointed by what I see happening. It isn't the "no code". It isn't easier testing. It isn't the flood of cheap radios. It ins't the obvious "appliance operator". It IS individual attitude. It IS a "user" mentality for some, that amateur radio is there as another source of entertainment/hobby for people with nothing better to do with their time. Acting as a servant to those in need really seems to be a rare trait these days.

 

[Jimru]

"I'm an amateur, have been for almost 30 years now. I'm disappointed by what I see happening. It isn't the "no code". It isn't easier testing. It isn't the flood of cheap radios. It ins't the obvious "appliance operator". It IS individual attitude. It IS a "user" mentality for some, that amateur radio is there as another source of entertainment/hobby for people with nothing better to do with their time. Acting as a servant to those in need really seems to be a rare trait these days."

I think the amateur radio membership these days also reflects the manners and mores of our general population.

Today's society is generally more rude, disrespectful and self-serving (witness our political sphere), so that is reflected in the ham population as well to one degree or another.

 

[cmdrwill]

Right on Mac.

Also a long time Ham, 40 + years....