FW: Re: [HCRA] FW: [fairfaxares] Wash Post - Ham - Post-tsunami

[Daniel Sullivan]

In case I forgot.

Dan KO1D

----Original Message Follows----
From: "Larry Krainson" <computercare at comcast.net>
Reply-To: "Larry Krainson" <computercare at comcast.net>
To: "Daniel Sullivan" <djs13 at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [HCRA] FW: [fairfaxares] Wash Post - Ham - Post-tsunami
Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2005 16:47:33 -0500

Hey no prob.

Post it to the group also.

Larry


----- Original Message ----- From: "Daniel Sullivan" <djs13 at hotmail.com>
To: <computercare at comcast.net>
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 10:36 AM
Subject: Re: [HCRA] FW: [fairfaxares] Wash Post - Ham - Post-tsunami


>Sorry I am so used to just having my ID on the paper that I forgot about 
>that.
>
>Dan S.
>KO1D
>
>
>Wave of Destruction, Wave of Salvation
>Ham Radio Operator on a Chance Visit to a Remote Indian Island Becomes a 
>Lifeline
>
>By Rama Lakshmi
>Special to The Washington Post
>Sunday, January 2, 2005; Page D01
>
>PORT BLAIR, India -- About one month ago, Bharathi Prasad and her team of 
>six young ham radio operators landed in this remote island capital with a 
>hobbyist's dream: Set up a station and establish a new world record for 
>global ham radio contacts. In the world of ham slang, it was called a 
>"Dxpedition."
>
>"It is a big honor to come to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and operate. 
>There is no ham activity here because it is considered a very sensitive 
>area by the Indian government," said Prasad, a 46-year-old mother of two 
>from New Delhi.
>
>In fact, the last ham activity in these scattered islands in the Bay of 
>Bengal, 900 miles east of the Indian mainland, occurred in 1987, when 
>Prasad set up a station in Port Blair and made 15,500 calls. "I had always 
>wanted to come back and break that record," she said.
>
>This time, Prasad set up an antenna in her hotel and turned Room 501 into a 
>radio station. She made more than 1,000 contacts every day and said she 
>operated "almost all day and all night, with just three hours of sleep."
>
>In the early hours of Dec. 26, while the other hotel guests were fast 
>asleep, Prasad's room was crackling with the usual squawks and beeps. At 
>6:29 a.m., she felt the first tremors of an earthquake. The tables in her 
>room started shaking violently. She jumped up and shouted, "Tremors!" into 
>her microphone. Then the radio went dead. She ran out and alerted the hotel 
>staff and other guests.
>
>But with that one word, she had alerted the world of radio hams, too.
>
>Within a few hours, the extent of the damage was clear to everyone in Port 
>Blair. But the tsunami had knocked out the power supply and telephone 
>service of the entire archipelago of 500 islands, leaving the capital 
>virtually cut off from the rest of India.
>
>Undaunted, Prasad set up a temporary station on the hotel lawn with the 
>help of a generator -- and put the city back on the ham radio map.
>
>"I contacted Indian hams in other states and told them about what had 
>happened. The whole world of radio hams were looking for us, because they 
>had not heard from us after the tremors," she said later. "But I also knew 
>this was going to be a big disaster. I immediately abandoned my expedition 
>and told all radio operators to stop disturbing me. I was only on emergency 
>communication from then on."
>
>While news of the death and devastation caused by the tsunami in other 
>parts of India was quickly transmitted around the world, the fate of the 
>Andamans and Nicobars was slow to unfold.
>
>Prasad kept broadcasting information about the situation to anyone who 
>could hear her radio. Over and over, she repeated that there was no power, 
>no water, no phone lines.
>
>On Monday morning, she marched into the district commissioner's office and 
>offered her services. "What is a ham?" he asked her. After she explained, 
>he let her set up a radio station in his office, and a second one on Car 
>Nicobar, the island hit hardest.
>
>For the next two days, as the government grappled with the collapsed 
>communication infrastructure, Prasad's ham call sign, VU2RBI, was the only 
>link for thousands of Indians who were worried about their friends and 
>families in the islands. She also became the hub for relief communications 
>among officials.
>
>"Survivors in Car Nicobar were communicating with their relatives in Port 
>Blair through us," she said. When the phone lines were restored on Tuesday, 
>Prasad's team in Car Nicobar radioed information about survivors to her 
>team in Port Blair, whose members then called anxious relatives on the 
>mainland to tell them that their loved ones were alive and well.
>
>Prasad also helped 15 foreign tourists, including several from the United 
>States, send news to their families. Offers of relief aid poured in from 
>around the world through her radio, and she directed them to government 
>officials. She also arranged for volunteer doctors to be sent from other 
>Indian states.
>
>Now she has become so popular in the islands, and in the ham world, that 
>she said she has been affectionately nicknamed the "Teresa of the Bay of 
>Bengal."
>
>When the earthquake occurred, Prasad's worried husband called her from New 
>Delhi and asked her to return home immediately.
>
>"He reminded me that I have two children to look after back home," she 
>said, laughing. "I told him that as a ham radio operator, I have a duty in 
>times of disaster."
>
>Under India's strict communications laws, a ham cannot leave home with his 
>or her radio without going through an elaborate bureaucratic process to 
>obtain permission from various ministries.
>
>Prasad said that after her first expedition to Port Blair, she spent 17 
>years begging and badgering officials before she was allowed to return.
>
>Now she hopes her work in the aftermath of the tsunami will ease the path 
>for other hams in India.
>
>"She looked like a simple housewife when she checked in," recalled Ravi 
>Singh, the hotel manager in Port Blair. "But now I marvel at the courage 
>she has shown."
>
>© 2005 The Washington Post Company
>
>
>
>
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