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 Previous: FCC Audit Continues into W5YI-VEC California Test Session |  Next: The K7VVV Solar Update |
By Bob Witte, K0NR
August 23, 2002
Is it possible to participate in a humanitarian mission and enjoy ham radio at the same time? You bet!
 The houses in the local village are constructed of wood and built up off the ground. |
Sometimes things just fall into place from a sequence of apparently random events. I was listening to an Amateur Radio Newsline transmission on our local repeater one evening and they did a story on how a medical organization was looking for ham radio operators to provide communications support for an upcoming trip to Honduras. I didn't think too much of it at the time, but the idea lodged somewhere in the recesses of my brain. Later, I was talking to Denny Buesching, KB9DPF, about getting together sometime in the winter for a little vacation fun. We had tried to do our annual backpacking trip during the summer, but our work schedules didn't cooperate. So, we started to think in terms of an escape plan to a warm spot during the cold winter months. I thought back to the Newsline report and thought, "hmmm, maybe this would work." I gave Denny a call and we decided to find out more about this opportunity. One thing led to another and the next thing you know, we were headed for Honduras in February of 2002.
International Health Service Mission
International
Health Service (IHS) of Minnesota, a non-profit organization
that provides free health care to the people of Honduras, sponsored the medical
mission. IHS has been doing this work for over 20 years. A typical mission trip
includes 80 to 100 volunteers organized into teams of 6 to 20 people that are
deployed into various parts of Honduras.
 The G5RV Junior antenna strung between the schoolhouse and the flagpole. |
A typical team includes one or two doctors, a few nurses, a pharmacist, a dentist, a radio operator, an engineer, a language translator and a few general helpers. These teams are spread out, often into remote parts of the country, so the role of radio operator critical to providing communications that link these teams together. Most villages have no phones, electricity or even roads. The typical radio setup at each location is similar to a basic Field Day operation--an HF transceiver powered by a gasoline generator, driving a wire antenna hung on the nearest tree or building.
A local Honduran radio operator (radioaficionado
in Spanish), Hector Godoy, HR3HGB, assisted IHS in applying for
Honduran reciprocal licenses for all of the IHS radio operators. We were issued
temporary call signs using the HR3 portable indicator in front of our US call
signs. At the time, my US call sign was KB0CY, so my Honduran call sign was
HR3/KB0CY.
 The HF operating position set up in the village schoolhouse. Left: Denny, HR3/KB9DPF and right: Bob, HR3/KB0CY. |
The communications plan for the mission used a number of amateur bands:
Remote Village
Most of the other stations were in remote locations. The assignment that Denny and I had drawn was a village known as Tipi Mona in the Mosquitia Region. The first challenge was to get there. For some village journeys, that means an all-day ride up a river in a small dugout canoe called a kyuka. For others, it's an 8-hour truck ride on what we would call 4WD roads in the states. Fortunately for us, we enjoyed a commercial airline ride to Puerto Lempira, followed by another airplane ride in a single-engine Cessna. Tipi Mona has a basic grass landing strip that the local cows and horses like to graze on. (The pilot buzzes the airstrip before landing to scare the animals away.)
Our radio installation at Tipi Mona consisted
of a Kenwood TS-440S transceiver with internal automatic antenna tuner feeding
a G5RV Junior antenna. The G5RV antenna covers 40 through 10 meters, so this
made for a relatively compact but frequency-agile system. Our medical team was
to set up in the local schoolhouse and there happened to be a flagpole nearby.
One of the local children assisted us by scurrying up the flagpole to string a
rope through the top of the flagpole. The other end of the G5RV was connected
to the schoolhouse and we pulled the feed line off to the side to keep it off
the ground. We fired up the gasoline generator, punched the tune button on the
TS-440S, and we were on the air.
 The nurse practitioner on our team checks out the ear of one of the local children. |
We quickly settled into a routine for handling the communication needs of the team. Our 40-meter net was dubbed the "Miskito Net," named for one of the local languages (Miskito) in Honduras. We generally used tactical call signs corresponding to the location, following up with our full HR3 portable call signs at regular intervals. For example, the tactical call sign at Tipi Mona was "Tipi."
Most of the radio traffic had to do with getting additional supplies sent to remote locations, and with the transport of patients. It was possible to send patients from the remote villages to Puerto Lempira for more in-depth medical treatment, including surgery. (At Tipi Mona, the Cessna airplane returned every few days with supplies or to transport patients.) We modified the net schedule to suit our needs and we often made other scheduled contacts to handle specific pieces of traffic. Three of our stations were equipped with PACTOR and could handle short e-mail messages using the Amateur Radio Winlink 2000 system. This system allows an amateur station to send and receive short e-mail messages via the Internet.
Extracurricular Amateur Radio
IHS has a philosophy of "work hard and play
hard." For me, that meant play with my favorite toys (Amateur Radios) when time
allowed. I have been dabbling with the low-earth orbit (LEO) OSCAR satellites
in the past few years. I assumed that any area where you had to fly into and
land on a grass strip would probably be a rare VHF grid, so I used my Yaesu
FT-817 QRP rig and an Arrow II antenna to work the AO-27 and UO-14 satellites.
Overall, we made 52 contacts on 11 satellite passes.
 Bob, HR3/KB0CY, makes an OSCAR contact on UO-14 while Denny, HR3/KB9DPF, does the logging. |
In the evenings, we'd often tune to 20, 15 and 10 meters to see what kind of DX we could find. Typically, a few CQs on one of these bands resulted in a pileup of operators that wanted to work Honduras. Our operating times were somewhat sporadic but at various times we experienced good openings (and pileups) into the US, Europe and Asia.
After spending 10 days in the village, we packed up the medical clinic and prepared to depart. The medical team at Tipi Mona saw approximately 1300 patients during this time, treating them for a variety of illnesses. The two Cessna airplanes once again returned and we reversed the process of multiple trips to transport people and equipment. Denny and I took the last plane from Tipi (sounds like the title of a Jimmy Buffett song) with the mixed emotions from having completed some good work but saying adios to the people from the village.
Experienced Radio Operators Needed
IHS is always looking for experienced amateur radio operators to participate in their missions. The next mission to Honduras will be in February 2003, with applications from potential participants due in October 2002. Volunteers for the mission pay for their own transportation and a project fee to cover expenses in Honduras. Radio operators should have experience with HF radio operation under portable conditions. Some locations have relatively comfortable lodging but most are more rustic, similar to camping out. A flexible, "can do" attitude is a must!
If you are interested in this type of
volunteer work or want more information on participating in an IHS mission,
contact Bob Witte, K0NR, k0nr@arrl.net or
John Kirckof, KB0UUP, IHS Communications Director, JMKKEK@runestone.net.
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