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 Previous: The K7RA Solar Update |  Next: FCC Releases Hundreds of Pages of Additional BPL Data and Filings |
NEWINGTON, CT, Jan 7, 2005--As the tsunami relief and recovery effort continues in South Asia, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has joined those paying tribute to Amateur Radio's ongoing emergency communication role. Director and Executive Vice Chairman S. Suri, VU2MY, of India's National Institute of Amateur Radio (NIAR), noted January 5 that the PM "was all praise for hams in India and the entire world who helped us in this hour of need." Suri said the administrator of hard-hit Car Nicobar Island has asked NIAR to keep on duty Rama Mohan, VU2MYH, and five other radio amateurs who have been providing communication with the island since shortly after the December 26 disaster.
"The district administration chief of Car Nicobar Island spoke to me this morning to say even now it is only the ham communication that is aiding them for relief and rehabilitation measures," Suri said in an e-mail to Jay Wilson, W0AIR, of the Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Response Association (DERA) and shared with ARRL. Mohan, who had received DERA training in the US, was part of NIAR's VU4NRO/VU4RBI DXpedition to Andaman and Nicobar Islands. When the earthquake and tsunami struck the region, DXpedition team leader Bharathi Prasad, VU2RBI, promptly shifted the operation to handle emergency traffic and health-and-welfare inquiries between the island and the Indian mainland. More than 20 Indian radio amateurs are said to be involved in providing emergency communication support in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands--a location from which the Indian government had not allowed Amateur Radio operation for 17 years until the recent NIAR DXpedition.
In the disaster's immediate aftermath, Suri said, Mohan and other DXpedition team members risked their lives to alert the chief of administration on Andaman Island, since tsunami waves later overran the road they had traveled. An NIAR staff member, Jose Jacob, VU2JOS, has provided emergency communication from another remote island, Hutbay. For the first nine days after the disaster, only the NIAR team was assisting, until other amateurs from the mainland were able to reach the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
 Bharathi Prasad, VU4RBI, demonstrates ham radio to naval cadets during the VU4RBI/VU4NRO DXpedition on Andaman Island. She quickly shifted to emergency communication mode after the earthquake and tsunami struck the region. [Henryk Kotowski, SM0JHF/VU3HKE, Photo--used by permission] |
Bharathi Prasad reported via Tony Waltham, HS0ZDX, that the VU4NRO/VU4RBI logs are safe and at the NIAR headquarters in Hyderabad. QSLing will commence once the emergency operation in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands concludes. DXer Charly Harpole, K4VUD/HS0ZCW, now near Bangkok, Thailand, told The Daily DX that QSL cards already are showing up at NIAR.
Harpole, who was visiting the DXpedition in Port Blair on Andaman Island when the earthquake and tsunami hit, has since been helping to handle emergency traffic from Thailand, where his wife's family lives. "The DXpedition and the emergency seem to have energized VU hams all over," he said in an e-mail made available by Carl Smith, N4AA, who edits QRZ DX. "I have been listening to the traffic from VU4 back to the India mainland, and by now it is smooth as silk with lots of H&W and some government messages running almost constantly."
Harpole advised amateurs worldwide to avoid the primary emergency traffic frequency of 14.190 MHz.
"The military and government are partners now with these hams," Harpole observed, noting that hams from India have been deployed throughout the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
In Thailand, he reports, hams have been using mostly 2
meters for their emergency traffic "and doing a huge job." Harpole said he's
heard very little from Bangladesh, and nothing from Sumatra and Burma (Myanmar),
"which may tell us something," he added. The earthquake's epicenter was some
100 miles off Sumatra, which is part of Indonesia.
 Charly Harpole, K4VUD, seen here at his Florida station, was visiting the VU4RBI/VU4NRO DXpeditioni when the earthquake and tsunami hit. He has since been operating from Thailand as HS0ZCW. |
Just three days after the calamitous tsunami, Radio Society of Sri Lanka (RSSL) President Victor Goonetilleke, 4S7VK, declared that "uncomplicated short wave" radio had saved lives.
"Ham radio played an important part and will continue to do so," he said in an e-mail relayed to ARRL. Goonetilleke said Sri Lanka's prime minister had no contact with the outside world until Amateur Radio operators stepped in. "Our control center was inside the prime minister's official house in his operational room," he recounted. "[This] will show how they valued our services."
Ironically, Mohan's emergency operation marked the very first Amateur Radio operation from Nicobar Island. "Mohan's signals were extremely weak, and he was in the skip zone of the Andaman stations on 20 meters," said Horey Majumdar, VU2HFR, in Calcutta, shortly after the disaster. "Improvisation was the name of the game. Hams had to switch to good old CW and switch frequencies from 14.190 and 14.160 MHz to 7.090 MHz." Majumdar said hams from Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Israel and elsewhere "have been checking into the VU emergency nets and extending their fullest cooperation in the truest spirit of Amateur Radio."
According to the latest estimate, more than 150,000 people died as a result of the tsunami, about one-third of them children. Many others are still unaccounted for, and health workers in the affected countries now fear disease will raise the toll substantially.
Although the US does not have third-party traffic
agreements with any of the countries affected by the disaster, international
emergency and disaster relief communications are permitted unless otherwise provided. While FCC Part 97 has not yet been
updated to reflect revisions to third-party traffic rules at World
Radiocommunication Conference 2003, ARRL understands from FCC staff that if the
government agencies responsible for the Amateur Service in affected countries do
not object to their amateur stations receiving messages from US amateur
stations on behalf of third parties, the US has no objection to its amateur
stations transmitting international communications in support of the disaster.
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