[BARC-List] BBC and WTC

[Dan Malloy]

Hello to all,
   I found this story about the BBC story on radio amateurs on 9/11 on a European numers station page.  ENIGMA is the European Numbers Information Gathering and Monitoring Association, and they have a YahooGroup page at enigma200.  Here is the story:

The  BBC's  Radio  4  is  probably  the  least  dumbed  down  of  all  the  Corparation's  undertakings  and  has  come  up  with  some  superb  programming  over  the  last  few  weeks.  On  4-September  there  was  a  half  hour  programme  with  the  title  "Unsung  Heroes"  which  was  billed  as  "The  little  known  story  of  amateur  radio  operators  who  provided  vital  communication  networks  for  the  rescue  agencies  when  the  World  Trade  Centre  was  attacked  in  New  York  on  9/11". This  told  the  story  of  local  radio  amateurs  who  used  their  equipment  to  set  up  emergency  communications  in  the  aftermath  of  the  attack,  using  hand-held  transceivers  linked  to  repeaters  -  presumably  two  metres  although  since  the  programme  was  aimed  at  a  generally  non-technical  listening  audience  this  was  not  confirmed  -  with  eventually   two  hundred  operators  being  involved. The  World  Trade  Centre  had,  because  of  its  height,  been  used  as  the  site  for  much  of  New  York's  fire,  police  and  ambulance  radio  repeater  relay  systems  so  that  when  the  building  was  destroyed  all  of  those  systems  went  off  the  air.   Individual  amateurs  interviewed  for  the  programme  included  Frank,  N2UMC,  husband  and  wife  Robert,  KB2PSM  and  Phyllis,  KC2DKD  and  Carlos,  K2LCD. 



DE Dan, KA1RDZ