By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
– Arthur C. Clarke
Shame on us: we take it for granted that someone can speak into a microphone miles away (perhaps thousands of miles), we can hear them, reply to them, share information and maybe even get someone some help.
It’s astonishing, but we accept it as commonplace. (Let me remind you: every time you fire up your mobile phone – smartphone or otherwise – you’re using a radio). And yet it has the potential for greatness.
I saw that greatness demonstrated by ham radio in the response to the devastation brought to Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee by Hurricane Helene. Torrential rains and high winds wiped out infrastructure – roads, bridges, dwellings, businesses, power lines, cell towers – isolating people and putting them in peril . . . and cutting off the affected areas off so thoroughly that people not far away had no idea how desperate conditions were. It was bad . . . really bad.
The morning after Helene ripped a hole in civilization in Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina, Dan Mark K2DMG dropped his callsign on the Mount Mitchell repeater (which is fortuitously located on the highest peak in the Eastern United States, giving it enormous reach) and asked if anyone needed help . . . and that began a saga that will likely be studied as an example of radio emergency response for years to come. For hours and then days, Dan – who had never before been a net control – passed health and welfare messages, summoned help for people, and much, much more. Others listened to Dan’s radio traffic and used it to direct help to those who needed it and to find roads that were open.
In the heart of the affected area, Thomas Witherspoon K4SWL (SWLing Post’s Maximum Leader) also used ham radio to summon help for others and provide community communications.
But these few words do very poor service to what really happened. So I would heartily suggest, recommend, even implore you to listen to the following videos and podcast.
Ham Radio Workbench Podcast:
Ham Radio Crash Course:
KM4ACK:
I think they will boost your appreciation of the potential of ham radio to do good. I know they inspired me.
Radio is magic indeed. As you said, we take it for granted that we can pick up a microphone and talk with people miles away, and yet there remains such a lack of knowledge on the topic with the general public and even within some emergency responder and management agencies.
We have our work cut out for us in the educational department, but with the head-smack of Helene followed up by the examples set by Dan and Thomas, the educational process just got a lot easier.
Well said, Jock. We do take such amazing technology for granted, that’s one of the side-effects of having technology like this which becomes so easy to use, but that’s a soapbox for another day.
I would extend this magic and amazing resource to SWL – I still cannot believe I can turn on a radio and hear broadcasts from around the world with a cheap little radio I can put in my pocket, not to mention the SDR technology which has thrust us leaps and bounds ahead of generations before us.
This is still magic to me after over 50 years of listening.
Thank you for this reminder, and for highlighting what was, and is, true life saving, and life changing magic. A shining moment indeed!
Cheers!