[BARC-List] Fwd: NYTimes.com Article: Hams on Alert

[rhampton2@carolina.rr.com]

Forwarded Message:
> From: wd8kel@arrl.net

Thought you folks might enjoy this one.

73,

Rick, WD8KEL

> Hams on Alert
> 
> June 1, 2003
> By COREY KILGANNON 
> 
> ON the subway, Charles Hargrove of Port Richmond, Staten
> Island looks exactly like the mild-mannered office 
manager
> he is. But if disaster should strike, he has a ham radio
> and enough electronics equipment in his briefcase to set 
up
> a makeshift communications center almost anywhere in the
> city. 
> 
> As the emergency coordinator for the city's Amateur Radio
> Emergency Service, Mr. Hargrove and the group's 80 other
> members handle communications between hospitals, 
shelters,
> city agencies and emergency services units, in the event
> that telephone lines and other radio services are down.
> Sept. 11, combined with government terror alerts, have 
put
> the city's hams on high alert. 
> 
> Charles Gallo, another emergency service member, carries
> around a large green backpack loaded with 50 pounds of 
ham
> equipment and survival gear, including a rain poncho, 
socks
> and underwear, a Sterno stove, hot cocoa mix, a 
pocketknife
> and saw, a sewing kit and duct tape. 
> 
> He now has a mast 20 feet tall that he can mount in less
> than five minutes onto his pickup truck as an antenna,
> instantly turning the vehicle into a mobile 
communications
> center. The other day, in the driveway of his house in
> Bayside, Queens, he showed off his mast, piecing it
> together quickly, then holding it aloft triumphantly.
> "There. What'd that take? A minute and a half?" 
> 
> The need for ham radios and their operators arises more
> than you would think: consider the Staten Island barge
> explosion earlier this year, not to mention sundry 
storms,
> fires and blackouts. 
> 
> Ham radios may bring to mind images of basement 
electronics
> fanatics or cold war bomb shelters. And, indeed, 
cellphones
> and the Internet have rendered much ham-radio activity
> obsolete. 
> 
> But hams take pride in telling you how useless cellphones
> often become in emergencies, because of dead spots or
> flooded circuits. Ham radios, by contrast, can run on 
many
> different frequencies and provide an open network, like a
> huge conference call. They are broadcast over hundreds of
> repeaters mounted on tall buildings citywide, boosting
> signals from individual ham radios to well beyond city
> limits. 
> 
> Charlie Alfano, a telecommunications technician from New
> Hyde Park, just over the Queens border, has five 
different
> ham radios and a computer installed in his sports utility
> vehicle, plus several extra car batteries, five antennas
> and his own 10-foot mast. "I can set up a mobile command
> station anywhere in Queens in 15 minutes," said Mr. 
Alfano,
> who has worked the city's emergency airways since the
> 1970's blackouts. 
> 
> But Mr. Hargrove tells members that they do not have to 
be
> as gung-ho as Mr. Gallo or Mr. Alfano. 
> 
> "We still have some Rambo guys, but I try to tone them
> down," he said. "If one of our members comes to a scene
> with three radios squawking on his belt, the cops label 
him
> a geek and say get the hell out of here. 
> 
> "We want guys with calm exteriors, but churning away
> underneath."
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/01/nyregion/01HAMS.html?
ex=1056076757&ei=1&en=8f726aecdd545bce
> 
> Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company