[SADXA] CNN - Ham radio operators are saving Puerto Rico one transmission at a time

[Jerry]

By Paul P. Murphy and Michelle Krupa, CNN
Updated 12:36 PM ET, Wed September 27, 2017

•    In Maria's wake, shortwave radio has been key to communicating in 
Puerto Rico
•    Fifty amateur ham radio operators are headed there to support 
recovery operations

(CNN)The phone call from the Red Cross came in late Friday night, just 
as the full scale of Hurricane Maria's calamity began taking shape.
"We need 50 of your best radio operators to go down to Puerto Rico."
In the days after the worst storm in three generations hit the American 
island -- and for many more to come -- public electrical, land-line and 
cellular communication systems showed few signs of life. And radio 
networks used routinely by police officers, power company workers and 
other first responder still were down.

No gas. No food. No power. Puerto Ricans fear their future
Yet, a key mode of communication -- one not reliant on infrastructure 
vulnerable to strong winds and flooding -- still crackled: the "ham" radio.
Answering the phone that night in Connecticut was the emergency manager 
for the American Radio Relay League, the group's CEO said. For more than 
a century, this group has served as a hub for amateurs licensed to 
operate the dependable, if archaic, medium known as ham radio and eager 
to pitch in when disaster strikes.
When the Red Cross made its latest appeal for heroes, these were the 
people it had in mind.

Already gearing up on his own that night to go to work, turning knobs 
and flipping switches, was Oscar Resto.
As one of dozens of ham -- shorthand for "amateur" -- operators across 
Puerto Rico, Resto had been authorized by the Federal Communications 
Commission to use radios, computers, satellites or the Internet to 
assist and support public safety during emergencies.
Often untethered from wires and cables, operators share information by 
voice, Morse code and other methods on a wide range of frequencies above 
the AM broadcast band. Such communications were critical during rescue 
operations after the 9/11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina.

Oscar Resto works with another volunteer to pass along information at 
the Red Cross headquarters in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
For three days after Maria hit, Resto sawed through the downed trees 
that separated his home from the road, he told CNN. Then he packed his 
car with radio gear, left his family and made the 25-mile journey to a 
makeshift Red Cross headquarters, where generators and batteries could 
power his equipment.
"I have the responsibility to establish the required emergency 
communications that the American Red Cross needed for understanding the 
needs of the citizens impacted by the hurricane," said Resto, a section 
manager for the American Radio Relay League, which boasts 160,000 members.
Survivors needed food, water, shelter and fuel to power generators after 
Maria knocked out the entire electrical grid. They also needed to 
communicate, to share critical information about diabetics nearing the 
end of their insulin reserves, babies threatened by dehydration, 
families rationing crackers.
Transmitting radio signals to other ham operators in the Caribbean, 
Resto and his shortwave brethren traded National Hurricane Center 
reports on Maria's position. He also contacted a ham operator in 
Florida, and asked "just to tell my daughter, Astrid, that we were 
fine," he recalled.
Before long, Resto and his compatriots realized their messages were the 
only ones getting off the island.
In an instant, their mission expanded: Anyone with the requisite skills 
and equipment was conscripted.
Shoulder to shoulder with first responders
Two ham volunteers, Raul Gonzalez and Jose Santiago, set up a radio 
control hub run by generator power in Monacillo, near San Juan, and 
other centers quickly followed suit. There, ham operators work shoulder 
to shoulder with public safety and utility officials to transmit 
information to other ham operators working with teams in the field.

Puerto Rico governor: Power could be out for months
A full week after Maria battered their homes, Resto and two dozen other 
Puerto Rican ham operators were still running radio operations for the 
police and the local power company, whose own wireless communications 
systems rely in part on computers and power sources knocked out by the 
storm.
For instance, ham operators riding with police use radios tuned to the 
special broadcast frequencies to transmit calls to other ham operators 
hunkered down at the command centers with officers, who in turn respond 
with orders.
A power company generator low on fuel? A ham operator from Resto's team 
deployed with the power company calls his counterpart at the command 
center and coordinates a fuel delivery.

Raul Gonzalez and Jose Santiago work to maintain the communication 
infrastructure they set up between ham radio operators in the Monacillo 
Control Center.
For his part, Resto learned Tuesday via a ham radio at the command 
center that an unsanitary hospital in western Puerto Rico was 
transferring patients to another hospital. It was just one of countless 
threads of information squawked across the operational frequencies in a 
massive effort to deliver relief and supplies.
"I am very proud of them," Resto said of his crew of amateurs. "They are 
the real heroes."
More help on the way
Less than 48 hours after the American Radio Relay League's emergency 
manager fielded the Red Cross' call, 350 ham operators had offered to 
help, said Tom Gallagher, the group's CEO.
Fifty of them prepared this week to embark upon a three-week deployment 
to Puerto Rico. They include retired executives and public safety 
officers, and hail from places from Washington to Texas to New 
Hampshire, he said.
"It's an incredibly personal sacrifice from individuals who are 
dedicated to serving communities," Gallagher said. "They have the skills 
and the motivation and the sense of responsibility."

Volunteers will deploy to the island with equipment kits so they can be 
agile and provide for themselves.
Volunteers will be outfitted with self-sustaining kits provided by radio 
manufacturers and dealer partners so they can be agile and won't burden 
those they're trying to help, he said.
Southwest Airlines was due to transport the equipment for free Wednesday 
from the group's New York headquarters to Atlanta, where volunteers 
planned to convene Thursday to board a chartered JetBlue flight for San 
Juan, Gallagher said.
There, they plan to connect with the Red Cross and likely spread out 
across Puerto Rico to continue the life-saving work of radio operators 
already well underway, Gallagher said.
"It's the first time they've asked us to do this on this scale," he 
said. "This is why we're here."



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