[CW] N3BK Sends 80 Messages from Lower Keys with CW

[D.J.J. Ring, Jr.]

Chet Hogue (N3BK) shows his ham radio sent out 80 messages for Lower Keys
residents in the days after Hurricane Irma. Chet Hogue
LOCAL <http://www.flkeysnews.com/news/local/>Old tech gets new life after
Irma

BY KATIE ATKINS

katkins at keynoter.com

OCTOBER 07, 2017 12:25 PM

It’s like something out of a war story from the past — a man sends Morse
code messages to let people know he’s alive in the worst of times.

It wasn’t years ago though. It was just under a month ago, Sept. 11, the
day after Category 4 Hurricane Irma passed over the Florida Keys and wiped
out most forms of communication with the outside world.

But there was one method to get information out that worked every time: Ham
radio.

A message from a Big Pine Key man to his girlfriend, who evacuated with
their young daughter and was waiting to hear how he weathered the storm,
was one of about 80 sent out over the airwaves by ham radio enthusiast Chet
Hogue in the days following Irma’s destruction. He sent messages all over
the world from the Lower Keys using his ham radio, and those messages were
relayed to friends and loved ones of people in the Keys who had no way to
communicate.

Hogue, a charter boat captain and Summerland Key resident, stayed in the
Lower Keys with friends during the storm but set up two ham radio stations,
one there and one on Big Pine Key.
“Two days after the storm, I went back to my boat on Big Pine and operated
there for the next five or six days,” he said. “What happens in disaster
situations like this, ahead of time there are some pre-published
frequencies.”
One frequency was used for relaying only weather-related information and
the other was used for passing messages, he said. Those two frequencies
became very busy, so he used Morse code on other frequencies to relay
messages clearly.

“I was able to be in contact with people across the country and around the
world,” Hogue told the Keynoter.

Just before dusk and about two hours after sunset, Hogue would send
messages out that he gathered from locals trying to get in touch with
friends and family. He communicated with a man in New Zealand and one at
the USS Hornet Museum in Alameda, Calif., among others.

Hogue said if it weren’t for his ham radio hobby, he wouldn’t have been
able to help all those people. He urges those interested to become involved
with ham radio to visit www.arrl.org.

“It’s just neat,” he said. “This system, with a piece of wire and a car
battery, you can talk around the world.”
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/cw/attachments/20171008/8665dda9/attachment.html>