
Ham radio operators are saving Puerto Rico (2017) - nunodonato
https://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/27/us/puerto-rico-maria-ham-radio-operators-trnd/index.html
======
knob
As was mentioned by tony-allan, this article is from last September. I'm
living in Puerto Rico and situation is now stabilized regarding
communications.

I want to take this time to thank everybody that has sent help this way, and
those that have enabled for help to reach this.

Everybody from ham radio operators, to the electrical service brigades from
dozens of States, to emergency personnel, everybody.

Thanks.

PS: I should start finally working on my ham radio license!

~~~
godelski
I suggest taking a bunch of these tests. You might be able to schedule one
test and get both technician and general. I did two tests in one day (and
missed like 2 or 3 from getting my general). But the technician is fairly
easy, but there is some memorization that you need to do.

[http://aa9pw.com/radio/](http://aa9pw.com/radio/)

~~~
kawfey
I recommend [https://hamstudy.org/](https://hamstudy.org/)

~~~
friesen
Seconded. I spent about two weeks studying with the mobile version of this
site in my free time and managed to pass the technician, general, and amateur
extra exams in one sitting.

~~~
wwkeyboard
Thirded, I used hamstudy to pass all of the tests and after a few years on the
air I finally know enough to understand the ARRL manuals. I'm reading the
extra manual and it's pretty incredible, they walk you through the theory of
building a transceiver starting at doping silicone to make semiconductors.

~~~
twothamendment
Fourthed, I always recommend hamstudy.org to people. My wife and I both used
it to study for a bit each night and easily passed our tests.

We live in an area that doesn't have good cell coverage, or some days the
tower just goes down and there isn't any service where there was great service
the day before. Even cheap, basic radios are very useful.

------
jgrahamc
The importance of ham radio is that it's infrastructure-less. People are
completely used to the Internet and mobile telephones working without thinking
about the infrastructure and its maintenance.

With my radios I can talk to people all over the place point to point without
any infrastructure at all.

~~~
giancarlostoro
After an article about the judge who did the case for Oracle vs Google and how
he was a ham I got more and more interested in ham radios. The only downside
is the cost of some of the equipment, but if you can reach a main city there's
usually repeaters up on those buildings from what I've been told. There's so
much to learn I feel and I don't know where to start truly, I've just watched
a couple of videos and read a few articles. I know I need to get my license
first for sure.

~~~
mehrdadn
> The only downside is the cost of some of the equipment

What about the fact that everyone in the world who can receive your signal
will hear and understand what you're saying?

~~~
Stratoscope
I just saw your latest replies in this thread. Can I offer you another way to
look at this?

Amateur radio is what it is. It has certain freedoms and certain restrictions.
The restrictions include no commercial use and no encrypted communication,
along with licensing tests, frequency and power limits, etc.

But the freedoms can be pretty great. You can help in emergencies. You can
have a backup radio in case you get in trouble outside cellular coverage. You
can explore electronics and antenna design. (I just saw a job listing for an
RF/antenna design specialist to work on self-flying cameras.) You can build
your own transmitter from scratch. You can talk to astronauts on the ISS or
bounce a signal off the moon!

And that's just a tiny fraction of the things you can do. If any of them are
interesting, then you just have to ask yourself, "Does it matter to me if
anyone is listening in?"

If it matters to you, no harm, no foul, you just find something else to do
instead.

~~~
mehrdadn
I agree with you on all counts—I feel like you guys are massively
misunderstanding my comment and somehow taking it as an attack on the notion
of ham radio, as if somehow I feel like it's some kind of evil. I don't. I
never did. It can be a great, useful, awesome thing. Where did I deny this?
All I was saying was that _" no downsides except the equipment cost"_ is
emphatically not an accurate picture—and I feel accurate pictures are
important regardless of how awesome something is. In this case it matters
because I don't want some poor soul to read this, go buy the equipment, and
then discover (hopefully not the hard way) that his (say) encrypted
communication is illegal, and everything he says must be public to the whole
world. I don't get why everyone here is so quick to extrapolate from _" X
isn't perfect, it has tradeoffs Y/Z"_ to _" X utterly sucks, I hate it, and it
needs to stop existing"_. It isn't helpful; it's a real turn-off that just
sucks the energy out of what could be a more meaningful/nuanced/informative
discussion.

~~~
Stratoscope
I'm pretty sure you are reading a lot more into the replies than anyone
intended. Your reply to me has a lot of nuance that wasn't in your original
comment, where all you said was:

> What about the fact that everyone in the world who can receive your signal
> will hear and understand what you're saying?

The replies to that comment merely pointed out that this is how amateur radio
works, that it is by design public communication. I don't see any indication
that anyone interpreted your comment to mean _" Ham radio utterly sucks, I
hate it, and it needs to stop existing."_

A long time ago I took a course in effective communication. I don't think of
myself as a great communicator, and I don't remember much of the course. But
one thing stuck in my mind: If you feel that people are failing to understand
what you are trying to say, don't blame them for misunderstanding you.
Instead, look to see how you can communicate more clearly so you will not be
misunderstood.

~~~
mehrdadn
In all honesty I find it borderline impossible to say things in such a way
that I will not be misunderstood on HN, at least if I plan to get anything
else done during the rest of my day. A lot of people here go out of their way
to misinterpret and/or take the most extreme interpretation of every comment,
or to just change the discussion topic to something else while ignoring the
actual comment.

Case in point for _all_ of these was here: I was trying to replying to was _"
there is no downside to X but Y"_, and I replied with _" what about Z?"_. A
logical response could have ranged anywhere from _" Yes, Z is also a downside
that is worth mentioning"_ to _" I'm not sure, because $reasons"_, to _" No, Z
is not really a downside because it would cause problem W"_. But instead
people just went out of their ways to just ignore the actual point and provide
replies ranging from _" if you don't like it don't use it"_ (this was you,
defending ham radio, as if me pointing out 1 downside is an attack on the
entire concept) to _" feature, !bug"_ (as if I somehow thought Z was an
accident, or as if something being intentional automatically implies it must
be an upside) to _" that's how V behaves too"_ (which is wrong because, no, V
doesn't force Z to happen, and even when Z does happen, it's far harder to
exploit... and which, even if correct, would also be irrelevant to the point
in the first place).

It's not that I _can 't_, it's just that it honestly sucks all energy out of
me (and the time out of my day) to try to preempt all these kinds of
misinterpretations or topic changes from my comment. Not just that, but even
when I _do_ find the time and energy to do this, I just find that others come
along who just cherry-pick the one sentence they disagree with and ignore all
the rest of the comment explaining the nuances behind that one sentence. When
I'm writing an article or a paper where the stakes are higher, I do find it
worthwhile to try to do that (and it's still not easy). But over here, I just
kind of always have this glimmer of hope that people will not go out of their
way to start an uphill battle for me when non ever existed in the first place.

------
Tunecrew
Apparently this exercise was not quite what it was made out to be:

[http://adam.curry.com/html/PleasecancelyourARRL-1508324966.h...](http://adam.curry.com/html/PleasecancelyourARRL-1508324966.html)

[http://www.kb6nu.com/weighing-puerto-rico/](http://www.kb6nu.com/weighing-
puerto-rico/)

(FCC Amateur Extra class here)

~~~
chrissnell
That story on Adam Curry's blog was not written by Curry himself, but by a
Richard Dougherty (NS0S) of Kansas City. The Reddit story it linked to was
deleted, so take this all with a grain of salt.

That said, it doesn't surprise me in the least. There are a lot of wannabe-cop
wannabe-military whackers in the amateur radio community, unfortunately.

(NW5W here)

~~~
dpeck
Its one of the things that has kept me away from amateur radion. I'm
interested in decentralized/emergency communications and have a good
understanding of RF, I've even picked up a couple of Baofeng handheld units to
listen in on things and get more familiar with that part of the spectrum but
the other people involved in the hobby aren't exactly the kind of folks I want
to hang around enough to learn from.

~~~
vitaflo
I'm a ham and I agree with you but you're missing the fact that the people you
may hear locally aren't indicative of the broader hobby. Yes there are a lot
of grumpy old elitists chatting up the airwaves every day, but there are also
people who rarely if ever talk but still do things with the hobby (like
myself). There are so many sub-genres in the hobby that someone can always
find something they enjoy.

If anything we need more people like you to get involved so we can have more
diversity of thought.

~~~
Tunecrew
I like it for the electronics and hacking - like I said I've got an Amateur
Extra class license and a 2x1 call sign, and I have literally NEVER keyed up -
not even once.

~~~
dpeck
Can you share some of the things you do in the hobby? It seems so much of it
revolves around voice due to restrictions on traffic (encryption)

~~~
Tunecrew
so far building electronic stuff - Arduino based CW gear, small antennas, just
got some BITX stuff, etc.

------
tuukkah
The Finnish media reported last month how the government wants to collaborate
with the radio hobbyists who have a network that is more resilient than the
official networks. Any longer issue in the mains network causes an emergency
and the official radio networks won't stay up long either in the countryside.

~~~
jabl
Interesting, but I couldn't find anything; link?

~~~
tuukkah
I can't find anything in English but here's a news item in Finnish (translated
title "The fire department is interested in the amateur-built network in
Northern Carelia"): [https://www.karjalainen.fi/uutiset/uutis-
alueet/kotimaa/item...](https://www.karjalainen.fi/uutiset/uutis-
alueet/kotimaa/item/174000-hs-pelastuslaitos-kiinnostui-amatoorien-
rakentamasta-verkosta-pohjois-karjalassa)

EDIT: Tweet from the Defence Department in Finnish ("\--the backup network
Varve is a great example-- --collaboration between the government and the
civil society"):
[https://mobile.twitter.com/DefenceFinland/status/96808789403...](https://mobile.twitter.com/DefenceFinland/status/968087894031290368)

One year ago in Finnish ("The role of radio amateurs growing in emergency
communications"):
[https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-9268716](https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-9268716)

------
tony-allan
Story is from September 27, 2017.

Great to see American Radio Relay League members doing this important work for
the citizens of Puerto Rico in their time of need.

~~~
sctb
Thanks! We've updated the title to clarify.

------
jenkstom
There was a lot of drama on this. Personality conflicts and such. But I'm glad
the amateurs could help. I tried to go, but they filled the volunteer slots
very quickly.

------
slr555
If I remember the original request from ARRL one of the things they were
looking for was HF operators who could use the data modes that exist in the
ham world to allow communication to insurance company internet resources based
in the mainland.

I thought this request was intriguing but wondered why they weren't able to
deploy BGAN for this purpose. A surgeon friend of mine said that after Katrina
sat phones were of minimal utility because the broadcast networks had
contracts that were consuming virtually all of the bandwidth. I'd be
interested to hear from anyone who can comment on this.

Some of the most interesting amateur radio technologies today are hybrid modes
like DMR that leverage the internet along with traditional amateur radio
technologies. With DMR it I have been able to speak from NYC to Malta with
crystal clear signal from an HT. While this is fun and I like DMR, in some
ways it is like a worldwide cellular party line. It would not be a go to
solution for a situation like Puerto Rico.

------
BenjiWiebe
Another thing I want to point out to all those talking about the expense - buy
an SDR. The RTL-SDR is cheap, and with direct sampling and a length of wire
can receive HF. Monitor stuff, find out how it works, and when you are bitten
with the bug, you can get licensed and start shopping for transceivers.

------
Wize1
Radio can be a lifesaving tool in these kind of emergencies. A friend in PR
told me that even the non hams were able to utilize radio when the power was
down, by using CB units hooked to car batteries.

------
alex_hitchins
To anyone interested in taking up the hobby, it's very easy to get started and
if you get into the rhythm of studying it's possible to go from Foundation to
Advanced in about a year. I was fortunate enough to go from M6 to M0 (I'm in
the UK) in just under a year. Intermediate (2E0) isn't much of a stretch past
foundation but the advanced (M0) took dedicated study time. The excellent bit
about gaining Full licence is the ability to transmit in most other countries
(providing you adhere to the local laws).

------
Dowwie
Whatever happened to mesh networking?

~~~
masukomi
pretty sure the main problem is distance on the frequencies and power ratings
that are available to unlicensed users. Hams can use more power (because in
theory we know how to do it without cooking nearby people) and we can transmit
on wavelengths with greater potential for travel.
[https://disaster.radio](https://disaster.radio) is one of the groups trying
to address similar problems via unlicensed mesh networks but the problem they
(and others) have is that you just need a boatload of nodes to get the signal
across any distance.

You can't roll that out in an emergency, and it's a logistical nightmare to
buy, setup, power, and maintain enough of them that in an emergency (including
power outage) there will be enough of them to get the message from the people
in need to the people who can do something about it.

