[ADXA] VU4 INFO

[LennyK5OVC at wmconnect.com]

Subj:   [DX-NEWS] VU4 report Dec 31 at 1030 Z   
Date:   12/31/2004 5:59:31 AM Central Standard Time 
From:    k4vud at hotmail.com (Charles Harpole)
Sender:    DX-News-owner at njdxa.org
To:    k4vud at hotmail.com, dx-news at njdxa.org
    
    


Hello DXers

VU4 report Dec. 31 at 1030 Z:

Likely my last report this year... let us hope for a happier new year....

1.  VU4RBI Bharathi, is returning to VU2RBI --her Delhi home-- tomorrow 
utilizing her previously existing air ticket.  This use likely would be her 
only way off the Island for some time as all airplane seats are taken these 
days outgoing.  She has been going non-stop first as DXpedition and then as 
emergency traffic handler.  She has been the mainstay of this whole 
operation and may be the HAM OF THE YEAR !

2.  Most of the rest of the team are staying on Andaman for the time being 
and several new operators are to arrive in the coming days to supplement the 
emergency traffic handling.

3. VU4NRO station one has been dispatched with two of the team to Cay 
Nicobar... one of the hardest hit of the Island chain.  I have heard lots of 
H&W traffic coming from them and many messages of requests for specific 
needs that are directed to various India authorities.

4.  VU4NRO station two with two operators has returned to the Polytechnic 
college dorm and the high antennas there.  They are mostly on 40m taking and 
relaying emergency messages back to the India mainland.

5.  Again, please let me be clear about my participation in all of this.  I 
functioned as a facilitator and helper from the beginning and on Andaman 
during the DXpedition part of this whole event.  I very much wanted this to 
be an ALL INDIA operation and not some foreigner's work.  Then, during the 
emergency, I also just helped on the sidelines.  As soon as I saw that the 
India folks had the emergency quickly and very thoroughly in hand and were 
immediately effective, I saw that my best role was to take my regularly 
previously scheduled air ticket date and fly back to Thailand.  Had I not 
taken that ticket, I likely would have been stranded indefinitely.  Also, I 
do not speak any of the verious languages used here, and knew I wiould be of 
little use on the air in Andaman for that reason.  (Please lay off the snide 
comments that I escaped... just not so).  Too, I saw that I could do relays 
for the team from my HS0ZCW station south of Bangkok... and that I have been 
doing.. using my different location to hear the VU4 stations on 40 and 20 
most any time.

6.  I attempted to send a message about the VU4 effort to send slow scan TV 
pictures to the ham world on 14.190 at about 0400 Z, today, but Hotmail has 
been failing over here much more often that working.  I am in the process of 
changing to Yahoo.

7.  Feel free to give out my Thailand telephone number to any one... 
66-5-046-1922.

The India hams are doing a magnificant job, on the mainland and the Islands. 
  They and all the others all over the vast affected area make me, again, 
proud to be a ham.  This is one of the first massively international 
catastrophies and hams from all these areas are there where needed in force. 
  Maybe HAM stands now for "Helping All Mankind"   ???
  73 and here's to a happier new year.

Charles Harpole
k4vud at hotmail.com