Ham radio operators are saving Puerto Rico (2017)

As was mentioned by tony-allan, this article is from last September. I&#x27;m living in Puerto Rico and situation is now stabilized regarding communications.<p>I want to take this time to thank everybody that has sent help this way, and those that have enabled for help to reach this.<p>Everybody from ham radio operators, to the electrical service brigades from dozens of States, to emergency personnel, everybody.<p>Thanks.<p>PS: I should start finally working on my ham radio license!

The importance of ham radio is that it&#x27;s infrastructure-less. People are completely used to the Internet and mobile telephones working without thinking about the infrastructure and its maintenance.<p>With my radios I can talk to people all over the place point to point without any infrastructure at all.

Apparently this exercise was not quite what it was made out to be:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;adam.curry.com&#x2F;html&#x2F;PleasecancelyourARRL-1508324966.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;adam.curry.com&#x2F;html&#x2F;PleasecancelyourARRL-1508324966.h...</a><p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kb6nu.com&#x2F;weighing-puerto-rico&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kb6nu.com&#x2F;weighing-puerto-rico&#x2F;</a><p>(FCC Amateur Extra class here)

The Finnish media reported last month how the government wants to collaborate with the radio hobbyists who have a network that is more resilient than the official networks. Any longer issue in the mains network causes an emergency and the official radio networks won&#x27;t stay up long either in the countryside.

Story is from September 27, 2017.<p>Great to see American Radio Relay League members doing this important work for the citizens of Puerto Rico in their time of need.

There was a lot of drama on this. Personality conflicts and such. But I&#x27;m glad the amateurs could help. I tried to go, but they filled the volunteer slots very quickly.

If I remember the original request from ARRL one of the things they were looking for was HF operators who could use the data modes that exist in the ham world to allow communication to insurance company internet resources based in the mainland.<p>I thought this request was intriguing but wondered why they weren&#x27;t able to deploy BGAN for this purpose. A surgeon friend of mine said that after Katrina sat phones were of minimal utility because the broadcast networks had contracts that were consuming virtually all of the bandwidth. I&#x27;d be interested to hear from anyone who can comment on this.<p>Some of the most interesting amateur radio technologies today are hybrid modes like DMR that leverage the internet along with traditional amateur radio technologies. With DMR it I have been able to speak from NYC to Malta with crystal clear signal from an HT. While this is fun and I like DMR, in some ways it is like a worldwide cellular party line. It would not be a go to solution for a situation like Puerto Rico.

Another thing I want to point out to all those talking about the expense - buy an SDR. The RTL-SDR is cheap, and with direct sampling and a length of wire can receive HF. Monitor stuff, find out how it works, and when you are bitten with the bug, you can get licensed and start shopping for transceivers.

Radio can be a lifesaving tool in these kind of emergencies. A friend in PR told me that even the non hams were able to utilize radio when the power was down, by using CB units hooked to car batteries.

To anyone interested in taking up the hobby, it&#x27;s very easy to get started and if you get into the rhythm of studying it&#x27;s possible to go from Foundation to Advanced in about a year. I was fortunate enough to go from M6 to M0 (I&#x27;m in the UK) in just under a year. Intermediate (2E0) isn&#x27;t much of a stretch past foundation but the advanced (M0) took dedicated study time. The excellent bit about gaining Full licence is the ability to transmit in most other countries (providing you adhere to the local laws).

Whatever happened to mesh networking?