[KCDXC] Ham Radio Operator on a Chance Visit to a Remote Indian Island Becomes a

[Mike ZooLoo]

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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