News Stories ARS: WC4R

MARS to Assist with Republican, Democratic National Conventions

The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has requested Army MARS support for the Democratic National Convention in Denver and the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis. "I find it hard to imagine a more challenging security operation than the upcoming Democratic and Republican National Conventions," said Army MARS Chief Stu Carter. "These climactic events, the first in Denver next week and the other a week later in Minneapolis, will gather hundreds of America's top leaders who will be exposed continuously to milling crowds of thousands. Just the thought of protecting all the converging aircraft and congested terminals is daunting enough for public safety planners."

Calling it "an awesome opportunity for MARS," Carter said that Mike Barrett, K3MMB/AAA9TS, is the Army MARS liaison at TSA headquarters. "He's a career IT specialist, the last 28 years in federal service and a TSA staffer from that agency's beginning. He joined Army MARS in 2004. When [Hurricane] Katrina struck a year later, it was Mike Barrett who initiated the first TSA-MARS emergency contact, with Texas Army MARS. This week, he has been coordinating support requirements directly with Region 8 for the Democratic Party Convention beginning Monday in Denver, and Region 5 for the Republican Convention on September 1 in Minneapolis."

According to Carter, the TSA's own MARS/Winlink teams are deploying from Tucson and Dallas to operate AAN8DNC with local staffers in Denver; Pensacola and Washington, DC teams will deploy to Minneapolis as AAN5RNC. Carter said that Barrett asked that Army MARS Regions 8 and 5 make resources available to the two convention operations as needed.

Barrett said that he feels "these events will provide valuable lessons learned and excellent training opportunities for the entire tri-MARS force. We therefore request that all other regions stand by for possible support. DHS/TSA will activate all MARS stations within its network in support and for training. Our resources will have direct contact with Department of Justice (DoJ) and FEMA resources, giving the MARS program an opportunity to further enhance the interoperability capabilities of all agencies."

ARRL 8-23-08

AMATEUR RADIO GETS FAVORABLE MENTIONS IN FEDERAL KATRINA REPORTS

Ham radio received positive mentions in post-Katrina reports from the US House of Representatives and the White House. References to the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES), the Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS) and the HF digital e-mail system Winlink 2000 appear in "A Failure of Initiative"--the final report of the Select Bipartisan Committee to investigate the preparation for and response to Hurricane Katrina (see http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/02/17/2/).

"Like all levels of government," noted the 364-page report released February 15, "the National Communication System (NCS) "was not able to address all aspects of the damage to the communications infrastructure of the Gulf States."

MARS was cited for its role as part of the Shared Resources High Frequency Radio Program (SHARES), a federal emergency communication system. The report says that "within days" of Katrina's landfall, NCS called upon more than 430 SHARES stations across the US to, among other things, assist first responders conducting search-and-rescue missions by relaying information to government agencies, by relaying logistical and operational information among FEMA EOCs in Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana, and by handling health-and-welfare messages between volunteer agencies in Georgia and the American Red Cross national headquarters.

"Additionally, the NCS coordinated the frequencies used by the nearly 1000 Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) volunteers across the nation who served in the Katrina stricken area providing communications for government agencies, the Red Cross and The Salvation Army," the report continued. "Emergency communications were conducted not only by voice, but also by high-speed data transmissions using state-of-the art digital communications software known as Winlink."

The report further noted, "In Mississippi, FEMA dispatched Amateur Radio operators to hospitals, evacuation centers, and county EOCs to send emergency messaging 24 hours per day. Cited were comments by Bay St Louis Mayor Eddie Favre that Amateur Radio volunteers "were especially helpful in maintaining situational awareness and relaying Red Cross messages to and from the Hancock County EOC."

According to the report, radio amateurs at airports in Texas and Louisiana "tracked evacuees and notified families of their whereabouts," while the Red Cross "deployed Amateur Radio volunteers at its 250 shelters and feeding stations, principally in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida."

The Salvation Army, the report pointed out, operates its own system of Amateur Radio volunteers known as SATERN (Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network). "During the Hurricane Katrina response and recovery effort, SATERN joined forces with the SHARES program and received over 48,000 requests for emergency communications assistance utilizing federal frequencies made available via the SHARES program," the report noted.

"A Failure of Initiative" asserted that the loss of power and the failure at various levels of government "to adequately prepare for the ensuing and inevitable loss of communications" hindered the hurricane response "by compromising situational awareness and command and control operations."

"Despite the devastation left by Katrina, this needn't have been the case," the report stressed. "Catastrophic disasters may have some unpredictable consequences, but losing power and the dependent communications systems after a hurricane should not be one of them."

The White House report, "The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned" http://www.whitehouse.gov/reports/katrina-lessons-learned.pdf released February 22 also cast Amateur Radio in a favorable light--in its Appendix B, "What Went Right."

"Amateur Radio Operators from both the Amateur Radio Emergency Service and the American Radio Relay League monitored distress calls and rerouted emergency requests for assistance throughout the US until messages were received by emergency response personnel," the report said. "A distress call made from a cell phone on a rooftop in New Orleans to Baton Rouge was relayed, via ham radio, from Louisiana to Oregon, then Utah, and finally back to emergency personnel in Louisiana, who rescued the 15 stranded victims."

The report also points out that Amateur Radio volunteers were on duty at the National Hurricane Center, the Hurricane Watch Net, Waterway Net, SKYWARN and the Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network (SATERN).

The report's Appendix B cites specific reports in the general news media about Amateur Radio activities following Hurricane Katrina and points to several news stories that appeared on the ARRL Web site.

From ARRL Letter 3/3/06

Radio lifeline
Ham operators among Katrina's unsung heroes
By JEAN PRESCOTT
jtprescott@sunherald.com
Arpil 19, 2006

GULFPORT - Tom Hammack says he knew it was going to be bad. His ham radio colleagues did, too, but none of them knew how bad. How could they?

Forty-some hours before Hurricane Katrina inundated the Mississippi Coast, Hammack, John Moore, Glover Hayden and Raymond Taber hunkered down in the Emergency Operations Center of the Harrison County Civil Defense headquarters in Gulfport. They went through a familiar drill, one they hadn't executed in recent memory. They prepared for any communications emergency Hurricane Katrina might bring and settled in for the duration.

That would be six weeks for some.

Hammack was the last of the four to move out of the EOC - Oct. 10, 2005.

"If it hadn't been for the amateur radio operators," Gen. Joe Spraggins, Harrison County EOC director, has said, "we wouldn't have had communications with other agencies... . ham radio saved the day."

Hams are among Katrina's unsung heroes. They were on the job 24/7, from Aug. 29 to Oct. 10, and worked 18- to 20-hour shifts, tapering off to 12 toward the end of their stay in the courthouse in Gulfport.

"On the radio, people were stepping up to the plate," Hayden remembers. His carefully crafted pre-Katrina structural chart went out the window, and "I broke so many (ham) rules to expedite messages and to get ambulances to hurt people."

Hammack concurs: "We had nothing but the best cooperation from everyone, but forget about Plan B. We were on plans E and F before we were through."

Moore remembers that during the hurricane, he reached another ham in Wiggins, "And he had phone service, so he made calls to Camp Shelby to stay in touch with the National Guard." A Guard officer, standing near Moore's elbow, is said to have grumbled, "Here I am with $40 million of electronics equipment, and the only ones who can get through are the amateurs."

"Radio amateurs have to be here," says Moore. "Modern technology is great, but when it goes out, it's out. Our equipment is low-tech, but it's reliable, and if it breaks, we can find ways to fix it."

The men spout indecipherable details about antennae and radio bands interspersed with stories about paper-clip-and-chewing-gum skills they summoned to keep things operating.

"We had some equipment failure," Taber relates, "and it's a good thing we were prepared with extra radios."

"We'd have been out of business without the Cable One tower," Hammack adds, referring to the local cable TV carrier. "They give the hams space (to broadcast and receive) in emergency situations," and Katrina was nothing if not that.

He says the hurricane crew can account for dispatching rescue for 200 people "until we ran out of our three-part forms." A hastily crafted computation system was able to handle dispatches that simply didn't stop. Hammack's best estimate is that the number ultimately reached 700 that first week.

"We were the only communications in and out of the EOC that week," says Moore, after which some cell phones came online in Harrison County, "but hams were the only way in and out of Hancock and Jackson counties."

The hams handled messages for all of coastal Mississippi, even a few for Orleans Parish and Slidell. Those messages covered a broad spectrum, from road information and medical evacuation to logistics for landing helicopters and distributing food.

They worked with fire, rescue, police, Mississippi Highway Patrol and the military to provide Katrina survivors with much needed help and information.

Truly vital information, press releases for public safety, were relayed to hams attached to other media outlets to be published and, in the case of WLOX, simulcast for TV and radio.

Taber, who also is a videographer and cinematographer, pulled the assignment at WLOX, where, he says, "I didn't leave except to get a shower (and for EOC meetings). I was there about a month."

The Coast Guard, FEMA, MEMA and DMORT (Disaster Mortuary teams) benefited from the four men's tirelessness "at the mike."

They had to climb towers to rebuild and replace antennae and equipment that failed during the storm and in the weeks that followed. Hams even installed several repeaters to help broaden local area coverage.

"And it was all volunteer," Moore says.

"Everybody stayed calm, though," he adds. "I never saw anybody lose his temper. What I saw in the EOC made me really proud."

Epilogue

Tom Hammack and his wife, Merle, are living in what she calls "our custom-built home in a gated community."

Hammack says, "I call it a FEMA camper trailer south of the razor wire."

He's still salvaging historic documents and books from the 1800s and early 1900s from his house.

"Of course, I lost thousands of dollars of radio equipment and books that were to have been a source of my retirement income," Hammack says, smiling all the while. "Someone has thrown some big boulders in the middle of my retirement easy street."

John Moore, an electronics engineer, wants it clearly understood that though he has a business and an apartment in New Orleans, "I was born in Tupelo, I am a Mississippian, and I always will be." He now makes his Crescent City home in a small trailer in Jefferson Parish. His apartment there was "trashed," but his home in Gulfport suffered minimal damage in Katrina, and he plans to retire here.

Glover Hayden knew within three days of Hurricane Katrina that his Pass Christian home had been destroyed; he saw it - or rather didn't see it - on NASA satellite images of the area. Understandably, all his belongings also were lost. He's in a trailer home in New Orleans, too, New Orleans East specifically. He's working to provide the Coast Guard with computer services for recovery and cleanup.

Ray Taber had moved to the Gulf Coast from Anchorage, Alaska, just weeks before Katrina. He and his family now make their home in a Biloxi apartment complex, and he's trying to get his videography business, B.C. Media Productions, off the ground.

Write Mississippi Coast Amateur Radio Association W5SGL, P.O. Box 1785, Gulfport, MS 39502 OR

Local contacts: Butch (KA2KMU) or Gail Horning (KC5KMU), thekmus@earthlink.net, or Tom or Merle Hammack (W4WLF), 864-4452, w4wlf@arrl.net.

Attend a meeting of MCARA, 7 p.m., the third Monday of every month at the Red Cross, Fernwood Drive at DeBuys Road, Biloxi.

Hooray for hams

As Gen. Joe Spraggins declared, hams saved the day during Katrina, and our four featured hams had a lot of on-air help: 427 volunteers, many of them hams, from 31 Mississippi cities, 38 states besides Mississippi and Canada.

If you'd like to become a ham, here's what you have to do:

Go to ARRL.org (American Radio Relay League) OR

Go to hello-radio.org

HAMS AID FIGHT AGAINST TEXAS GRASS FIRES

Amateur Radio Emergency Service and other Amateur Radio operators from the West Texas Section, and especially the Abilene vicinity, were called to assist with communications during the last week of 2005 when the wildfires struck Cross Plains, Texas, in the southeastern portion of neighboring Callahan County.

"There was no cell service because the connection to the cell tower was burned," said Bill Shaw, KJ5DX, the ARRL Emergency Coordinator in nearby Taylor County. "There was one landline phone working at the church where the Cross Plains Red Cross shelter was set up."

Amateur Radio operators established communication via UHF and VHF radios between the Cross Plains Shelter, Brownwood Red Cross Shelter, and Abilene Red Cross headquarters. A team of 14 radio amateurs was on hand during this emergency.

"We kept up 24 hour communications for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday until noon via ham radio," Shaw explained. "The fire started as a grass fire about noontime on December 27, and quickly escalated into a raging wildfire that was fed by 45 mph winds."

Unfortunately, the fire quickly spread toward town about 3 miles away, and it burned the area that is about 4 to 6 miles east-west and 2 to 3 miles north-south in size.

"About 31 fire departments fought fires until about 5:00 the next morning," Shaw said. As a result of this fire, almost 8,000 acres burned, 152 homes were damaged, and that represents 25 to 30 per cent of the homes in Cross Plains. Over a hundred of those homes were completely destroyed.

Wildfires have also been burning in drought-stricken Oklahoma and New Mexico.

From The ARRL Letter 1/6/2006.

HAM RADIO SAVES THE DAY IN MISSISSIPPI; RITA RECOVERY CONTINUES IN TEXAS

Amateur Radio volunteers in Jasper County, Texas, continue to support mass-feeding operations by The Salvation Army, which has been coordinating with other relief groups to provide meals to Hurricane Rita-displaced residents. Amateur volunteers plan to meet with Salvation Army personnel to discuss the need for Amateur Radio support beyond this weekend. Meanwhile, ARRL Alabama SM Greg Sarratt, W4OZK--who's been handling the intake of American Red Cross volunteers in Montgomery, Alabama--has been visiting ARC shelters along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Shelters there are in the process of closing down. In Gulfport, Amateur Radio volunteers continue to support communication for the emergency operations center (EOC) in Harrison County, where they've been a mainstay since Hurricane Katrina struck in late August.

"If it hadn't been for Amateur Radio operators, we would not have had communications with other agencies," said Col Joe Spraggins of the Harrison County Emergency Management Agency. "Even with the advancements in our radio technology, ham radio saved the day! Thank you."

Christy Hardin, KB7BSA, a Southern Baptist Disaster Relief volunteer from Alabama, and husband Rick, KB4BSA, have been in the Gulf Coast twice following Hurricane Katrina. She had nothing but praise for those who have been volunteering to maintain communication at the EOC 24/7 in some cases despite having lost their own homes to the storm. "The four or five operators who worked around the clock for nearly a month are the true heroes," she said.

In particular, she cited ARES District Emergency Coordinator Tom Hammack, W4WLF, Ray Taber, WX5AAA, Glover Hayden, W5BLV, and John Moore, W5EG, for serving unselfishly on behalf of Mississippi Gulf Coast residents. Hammack has been living in the EOC since the storm flooded and badly damaged his house. An instructor for all three levels of the ARRL Amateur Radio Emergency Communications course, Hardin says she was "thrilled to see it in action" as the EOC volunteers performed as true professionals.

South Texas ARRL Section Manager Ray Taylor, N5NAV, this week estimated upward of 60 Amateur Radio volunteers were on the ground in Texas, many supporting shelters scattered throughout the area. North Texas SEC Bill Swan, K5MWC, has been helping to recruit and schedule ARES members from his section to assist in mass-care operations in Jasper County.

Taylor says radio amateurs in North Texas and Arkansas have been helping to cover net control shifts and to serve as relay stations for the West Gulf ARES Emergency Net on 7.285 MHz days/3.873 MHz evenings.

Scott Pederson, KI5DR, reports he just returned home from three days in Jasper County, Texas, working with John Wagner, WA5VBP, Charles Fletcher, N5BOY, and John Barber, N5JB. "Our job was to deliver hot meals to various locations around a three-county area with five Salvation Army trucks and also several Red Cross trucks working together," he said. Ham radio, he explained, helped to coordinate the delivery routes by the various agencies involved. While VHF FM simplex was okay for local work, the West Gulf ARES Emergency Net on HF was very reliable.

"Even though regular phones are working most of the time, it's really the hams that are the communicators of the group," he said. Pederson also lauded the efforts of The Salvation Army, American Red Cross and Arkansas Methodist Men's volunteers. "Everyone is focused and cares deeply about their tasks," he said, "and things are happening at lightning speed throughout the day."

In Louisiana, SEC Gary Stratton, K5GLS, said earlier this week that some 45 Amateur Radio volunteers remained on hurricane recovery duty there. "Things are settling down," Stratton told ARRL.--Christy Hardin, KB7BSA, supplied information for this article.

From The ARRL Letter 10/7/2005

AMATEUR RADIO VOLUNTEERS FILLING COMMUNICATION GAPS IN GULF REGION

Hundreds of Amateur Radio operators from the Gulf Coast and elsewhere in the US continue to volunteer their skills and expertise as the Hurricane Katrina relief effort heads into its third week. ARRL Section Managers (SMs) and Section Emergency Coordinators (SECs) across and around the affected region have been teleconferencing daily to keep their efforts on the same page. In the field, Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) and other volunteers are assisting as needed to support communication for relief agencies as well as for state and local government and even the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Louisiana SEC Gary Stratton, K5GLS, says Amateur Radio was the only means for state officials at the state emergency operations center (EOC) in Baton Rouge to communicate earlier this week with the so-called "Florida parishes" above Lake Pontchartrain.

"We have had praise from one end of Louisiana to the other about Amateur Radio operators," Stratton said. "There was a communication to the EOC in Baton Rouge from FEMA that said, 'Ham radio is our prime communications with you, and they should get anything they need,' so FEMA recognizes the importance of ham radio." He also recounted how state officials arriving at the EOC were using ham radio to get through to their hard-hit parishes.

A marshaling center has been established in Covington, Louisiana. ARES has been continuing to support Red Cross shelter and Southern Baptist Convention debris-clearing in St Tammany parish, as well as Baptist Men's Kitchen canteen operations. In Washington Parish, ARES volunteers--including more than a dozen from South Texas--have been providing critical communication among hospitals and the parish EOC, among other functions. Field teams werecontinuing to use HF to maintain communication with the EOC in Baton Rouge.

Stratton, who's temporarily handed over his SEC duties to former Louisiana SM Al Oubre, K5SDG, said that while things are going along okay right now, he foresees a need for additional operators down the road, once closed areas are reopened. "One of the biggest problems we're going to have is relief for the operators who have been down there [in the affected parishes]," he said.

"New Orleans is, of course, our next thrust, and we're going to have to have to staff recovery efforts down there, but it'll be a different kind of recovery effort," Stratton predicted. "We'll be supporting the EOC in Baton Rouge with temporary communications until the National Guard can get in."

Stratton said Amateur Radio has even had to loan some government agencies their communication gear because their own didn't function. "It's been an eye-opener to me operating in the EOC down there how terribly their equipment operates," he said.

In Mississippi, ARES operators have been helping to maintain communication among hospitals, EOCs and shelters. ARES District Emergency Coordinator Tom Hammack, W4WLF, reported operators were sleeping on the floor when off duty. State RACES Officer and ARES DEC Ron Brown, AB5WF, was setting up a staging area for Amateur Radio volunteers near the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency in Jackson.

SECs in the US Gulf advise volunteers signing up for duty in the hurricane-stricken zones to coordinate with their home SECs and, once given the go-ahead, arrive as self-sufficient as possible. "If you need it, you bring it," advised Alabama SEC Jay Isbell, KA4KUN. Volunteers have come from all over the US.

Isbell said each Red Cross feeding unit was turning out 25,000 to 30,000 meals a day. "They still need communication," he said. Local amateurs in the affected areas were handling some of the tactical communication on VHF.

A staging area in Montgomery, Alabama, continues to process and orient Amateur Radio volunteers for American Red Cross and other duty in Louisiana and Mississippi. Some volunteers will help support communication at Red Cross shelters set up for evacuees, while others will provide tactical communication for feeding stations or for emergency management. Alabama SM Greg Sarratt, W4OZK, has been coordinating ham radio volunteers at the Montgomery site.

Norm North Jr, WA1DBR, of Arkansas, was deployed to a Red Cross shelter in Biloxi, Mississippi, where he managed to squeeze in some health-and-welfare messages among the emergency traffic.

North says typical requests included pleas from mothers trying to find missing children, youngsters looking for parents and other trying to get word to families and loved ones that they'd survived the storm and were at the shelter. "Many messages got through," North said, "and I received many thanks and hugs."

As conventional telecommunications starts coming back to life, traffic has been slowing on the major regional HF emergency net--the West Gulf ARES Emergency Net on 7.285 MHz days and 3.873 MHz nights. As a result, the net announced September 9 that it would secure routine operation at 0600 UTC September 10. An open net will be maintained on 3.862 MHz after that.

West Gulf ARES Emergency Net Manager Lee Franks, N5FP (ex-AD5IS), says the net passed traffic as recently as September 7 about a man trapped in an attic in Arabi [Louisiana]. "We're still getting a trickle of messages like this," he said earlier this week. "As communications are reestablished via landline and VHF-UHF links in that area, there has been less demand on our net--but I'd call it an absolute, tremendous success what we have done."

There's more information on Amateur Radio's Hurricane Katrina response on the ARRL Web site http://www.arrl.org.

From The ARRL Letter 9/9/2005.

As Telecom Reels From Storm Damage, Ham Radios Hum

By CHRISTOPHER RHOADS

Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

September 6, 2005; Page A19

MONROE, La. -- In a shelter here, 300 miles north of New Orleans, Theo McDaniel took his plight to a young man fiddling with a clunky, outdated-looking radio.

Mr. McDaniel, a 25-year-old barber, had evacuated New Orleans with his wife and two small children more than a week ago and since then had had no contact with his brother or his aunt. The last he heard, his 42-year-old aunt was clinging to her roof.

"We've got to get a message down there to help them," he said. The man at the radio sent the information to the emergency-operations center across town, which relayed it to rescue units in New Orleans. Later in the weekend, Mr. McDaniel learned that food and water were on the way to his trapped brother and his brother's young family. He had heard nothing about his aunt.

With Hurricane Katrina having knocked out nearly all the high-end emergency communications gear, 911 centers, cellphone towers and normal fixed phone lines in its path, ham-radio operators have begun to fill the information vacuum. "Right now, 99.9% of normal communications in the affected region is nonexistent," says David Gore, the man operating the ham radio in the Monroe shelter. "That's where we come in."

In an age of high-tech, real-time gadgetry, it's the decidedly unsexy ham hadio -- whose technology has changed little since World War II -- that is in high demand in ravaged New Orleans and environs. The Red Cross issued a request for about 500 amateur radio operators -- known as "hams" -- for the 260 shelters it is erecting in the area. The American Radio Relay League, a national association of ham-radio operators, has been deluged with requests to find people in the region. The U.S. Coast Guard is looking for hams to help with its relief efforts.

Ham radios, battery operated, work well when others don't in part because they are simple. Each operator acts as his own base station, requiring only his radio and about 50 feet of fence wire to transmit messages thousands of miles. Ham radios can send messages on multiple channels and in myriad ways, including Morse code, microwave frequencies and even email.

Then there are the ham-radio operators themselves, a band of radio enthusiasts who spend hours jabbering with each other even during normal times. They are often the first to get messages in and out of disaster areas, in part because they are everywhere. (The ARRL estimates there are 250,000 licensed hams in the U.S.) Sometimes they are the only source of information in the first hours following a disaster. "No matter how good the homeland-security system is, it will be overwhelmed," says Thomas Leggett, a retired mill worker manning a ham radio in the operations center here. "You don't hear about us, but we are there."

Slidell, a town 30 miles northeast of New Orleans, was directly hit by the hurricane and remains virtually cut off from the outside world. One of the few, if not the only, communications links is Michael King, a retired Navy captain, operating a ham radio out of a Slidell hospital.

"How are you holding up, Mike?" asked Sharon Riviere into a ham-radio microphone at Monroe's operations center. She and her husband, Ron, who is the president of the Slidell ham-radio club, had evacuated before the storm to the home of some fellow ham-radio enthusiasts in Monroe. She said Mr. King had been working 20-hour days since the storm hit.

Crackling static and odd, garbled sounds followed her question to Mr. King.Then he replied: "It's total devastation here. I've got 18 feet of water at my house. Johnny's Café down there has water up to its roof."

Ms. Riviere asked about her own home, which is not far from Mr. King's. "It's full of mud," Mr. King replied. "Looks like someone's been slugging it out in there."

Ham radios are often most effective as one link in a chain of communication devices. Early last week, someone trapped with 15 people on a roof of a New Orleans home tried unsuccessfully to get through to a 911 center on his cellphone. He was able to call a relative in Baton Rouge, who in turn called another relative, Sybil Hayes, in Broken Arrow, Okla. Ms. Hayes, whose 81-year-old aunt was among those stranded on the New Orleans roof, then called the Red Cross in Broken Arrow, which handed the message to its affiliated ham-radio operator, Ben Joplin.

Via stations in Oregon, Idaho and Louisiana, Mr. Joplin got the message to rescue workers who were able to save the 15 people on the roof, according to the ARRL, based in Newington, Conn. "We are like the Pony Express," says the 26-year-old Mr. Gore, wearing black cowboy boots. "One way or the other, even by hand, we will get you the message."

Mr. Gore, who is in charge of the northeastern district of Louisiana for the Amateur Radio Emergency Service, has spent a lot of time the past week at the Monroe shelter, helping evacuees try to track missing friends and relatives.

Last Monday, Danita Alexander of Violet, La., came to a ham operator in the Monroe shelter asking about her 96-year-old grandfather, Willie Bright, who had been in a nursing home in New Orleans. The next day, she got word back from a ham operator that he had been safely transferred to a shelter near New Orleans. "We can't do enough of these," says Mark Ketchell, who runs the ARES branch in Monroe.

Nevertheless, the ham-radio community feels under threat. Telecom companies want to deliver broadband Internet connections over power lines, which ham-radio operators say distorts communications in the surrounding area. Since hams are "amateurs," there is little lobbying money to fight such changes, they add.

The hams also get little respect from telecommunications-equipment companies, such as Motorola Inc. "Something is better than nothing, that's right," says Jim Screeden, who runs all of Motorola's repair teams in the field for its emergency-response business. "But ham radios are pretty close to nothing." Mr. Screeden says ham radios can take a long time to relay messages and work essentially as "party lines," with multiple parties alking at once. Says Mr. Leggett at the Monroe operations center: "We are the unwanted stepchild. But when the s- hits the fan, who are you going to all?"

Write to Christopher Rhoads at christopher.rhoads@wsj.com1

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT GRANT TO "HAM AID" WILL SUPPORT KATRINA RESPONSE

The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) www.nationalservice.org will provide a $100,000 grant supplement to ARRL to support Amateur Radio's emergency communication operators in

states affected by Hurricane Katrina. The grant will help to fund "Ham Aid," a new League program to support Amateur Radio volunteers deployed in the field in disaster-stricken areas. ARRL Chief Development Officer Mary Hobart, K1MMH, expressed gratitude to CNCS for its generous response. Ham Aid, she said, offers a unique opportunity to support individual radio amateurs helping to bridge the communication gap Hurricane Katrina has caused.

"For the first time in ARRL history, we will be able to reimburse some of the expenses that hams incur in response to a disaster," she said. "We only wish that we could justify an expense reimbursement program like this every time Amateur Radio Emergency Service volunteers are called upon to help in a disaster or emergency, sometimes placing themselves in harm's way."

Hobart said it's only due to the scope of the unprecedented and tragic Katrina disaster that CNCS agreed to help support dedicated Amateur Radio volunteers. "But," she added, "we'd like to think of this grant as a token of appreciation and a recognition of Amateur Radio's value in past emergencies and disasters, such as 9/11."

Hobart says ARRL's Ham Aid program already has received some substantial private donations. Those and the CNCS grant, she said, provide a way for the League to "support our Field Organization as never before."

The CNCS Ham Aid grant is effective for operations established and documented as of September 1, 2005, and the aid is earmarked for Hurricane Katrina deployments only at this point. Guidelines are being established that will permit volunteers who have been involved in bona fide field support operations on or after September 1 to apply for a reimbursement voucher on a per diem basis.

Grant funds may also sustain the Ham Aid program and help to rebuild the emergency communications capabilities in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama o ensure that the Gulf Coast is prepared, should disaster strike again.

The CNCS grant is an extension of ARRL's three year Homeland Security training grant, which has provided certification in emergency communication protocols to nearly 5500 Amateur Radio volunteer over the past three years.

"CNCS grants helped make it possible for the ARRL to train America's hams and make them the best all-volunteer emergency radio service ever seen," Hobart said. "Now they are making it possible for the hams to use that training."

From ARRL Letter 9/9/2005

Ham radio operators provide vital link after storm

By DAVID HARRISON
The Roanoke Times

September 1, 2005

ROANOKE, Va. -- Gary Hendrick sat on a stool in his garage in Craig County and fiddled with the knobs and buttons of his ham radio. He was frustrated because the signals were weakening in the late afternoon.

Then an urgent voice sliced through the static, clear as a bell.

"I have a diabetic, 80 years old, out of food and water for the last 24 hours," it said.

An elderly woman from Bush, La., was stranded in her home after Hurricane Katrina and desperate for food and insulin. Somebody sent the message out over the air. Other voices picked up the call and it was relayed all across America until, with luck, it would reach a local rescue squad.

With cellphones, land lines and e-mail knocked out by the storm, amateur radio operators have become the only link to the outside for some people stranded by high water. Radio operators have become like shortwave carrier pigeons alerting rescuers to stranded victims and reassuring families about loved ones cut off from communication.

In a way it's sweet revenge for what Hendrick calls the "lost art" of ham radio. With younger generations gravitating toward newer technologies, it takes a disaster to remind people that no amount of destruction will knock out basic radio traffic.

As soon as the water started rising in Louisiana and Mississippi this week, people like Hendrick started a days-long vigil relaying messages into the ether. On Wednesday afternoon, Hendrick tried to send messages but the radio signals were so poor no one could hear him.

"Kilowatt Bravo 4 India Papa Radio. Can I get a relay into net control?" he repeated into his microphone to no avail.

It was such a beautiful late summer afternoon in Hendrick's garage at the end of a rural dirt road in Craig County that it was hard to imagine that somewhere just a few states away time was running out for a hungry diabetic woman.

"It's frustrating. It really is," Hendrick said with exasperation as he got up from his stool. "The traffic on here is so heavy and there are so many calls coming from all over the country."

Whenever disaster strikes, ham radio operators organize into networks with a control operator directing radio traffic, said David Dabay, technical director for the Virginia chapter of the American Radio Relay League. They get in touch with radio operators from the affected areas and relay messages to the outside world. Sometimes public safety agencies use radio frequencies usually reserved for amateurs when their own frequencies become overloaded.

Ordinarily radio enthusiasts, who tend to be late middle-aged men, chat about their equipment, the weather or whatever is on their minds, Hendrick said. But they're also trained to respond quickly should they find themselves in an emergency. They know how to hook up their radios when the power fails; they keep emergency kits handy; some have four-wheel-drive vehicles they can use to get patients to hospitals. Every year, usually in June, they gather to train in a simulated emergency, an event known as Field Day.

"It's recognized by both the Red Cross and the Salvation Army," said Dabay, of Roanoke. "There's a really strong community of involvement and generally they have the respect and reputation to not get in the way of law enforcement."

"There's a partnership there and actually in our building in downtown Roanoke we have a room designated for the radio guys, we call them," said Amy Whittaker, spokesperson for the Roanoke Valley chapter of the Red Cross. Sometimes the radio operators join rescue workers in disaster drills, she added.

After an exasperating afternoon Wednesday, Hendrick was finally able to get on the air. He heard of a family in Charlotte, N.C., trying to get news of a daughter, a student at Tulane University in New Orleans who hasn't been heard from in days. He repeated the information into his microphone addressing it to anybody who could hear him.

"We may get an answer, we may not," he said.

PRESIDENT BUSH SENDS GREETINGS TO FIELD DAY 2005 PARTICIPANTS

President George W. Bush has sent greetings from the White House to everyone participating in ARRL Field Day 2005.

"I send greetings to those celebrating the annual Field Day for Amateur Radio, hosted by the American Radio Relay League. Across our country, radio plays a vital role in relaying important information to the public and

emrgency service personnel in times of need," the president said.

"By providing emergency communications at the federal, state, and local level, licensed Amateur Radio operators help first responders and law enforcement officials save lives and make our country safer. Your efforts help ensure the right assistance gets to the right people at the right time. I appreciate all ham operators who give their time and energy to help make our citizens more secure. Your good work reflects the spirit of America and contributes to a culture of responsibility and citizenship that strengthens our nation. Laura and I send our best wishes."

An annual exercise aimed at developing skills to meet the challenges of emergency preparedness as well as to acquaint the general public with the apabilities of Amateur Radio, ARRL Field Day takes place this year on Saturday and Sunday, June 25-26. Stations throughout the Americas may participate.

The ARRL letter 6-24-05

The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) and its member-societies representing more than 150 countries around the globe celebrate World Amateur Radio Day each year on April 18 to mark the anniversary of the IARU's founding in 1925. The theme for this year's 80th anniversary celebration is "Expanding the World of Wireless Communications."

As the tsunami relief and recovery effort continues in South Asia, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has joined those paying tribute to Amateur Radio's ongoing emergency communication role. Director and Executive Vice Chairman S. Suri, VU2MY, of India's National Institute of Amateur Radio (NIAR), noted January 5 that the PM "was all praise for hams in India and the entire world who helped us in this hour of need." Suri said the administrator of hard-hit Car Nicobar Island has asked NIAR to keep on duty Rama Mohan, VU2MYH, and five other radio amateurs who have been providing communication with the island since shortly after the December 26 disaster.

"The district administration chief of Car Nicobar Island spoke to me this morning to say even now it is only the ham communication that is aiding them for relief and rehabilitation measures," Suri said in an e-mail to Jay Wilson, W0AIR, of the Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Response Association (DERA) and shared with ARRL. Mohan, who had received DERA training in the US, was part of NIAR's VU4NRO/VU4RBI DXpedition to Andaman and Nicobar Islands. When the earthquake and tsunami struck the region, DXpedition team leader Bharathi Prasad, VU2RBI, promptly shifted the operation to handle emergency traffic and health-and-welfare inquiries between the island and the Indian mainland. More than 20 Indian radio amateurs are said to be involved in providing emergency communication support in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Ironically, until the recent NIAR DXpedition the Indian government did not allow Amateur Radio operation from the islands. It's since cleared the way for all Indian hams to operate from VU4.

In the disaster's immediate aftermath, Suri said, Mohan and other DXpedition team members risked their lives to alert the chief of administration on Andaman Island, since tsunami waves later overran the road they'd traveled. NIAR staff member Jose Jacob, VU2JOS, was providing emergency communication remote Hutbay Island.

Now back on the Indian mainland, Bharathi Prasad has reported that the VU4NRO/VU4RBI logs are safe and at NIAR headquarters, and QSLing will commence once the emergency operation concludes. DXer Charly Harpole, K4VUD/HS0ZCW, now in Bangkok, Thailand, told The Daily DX <http://www.dailydx.com> that QSL cards already are showing up at NIAR.

Harpole, who was visiting the DXpedition in Port Blair on Andaman Island when the earthquake and tsunami hit, has since been helping to handle emergency traffic from Thailand, where his wife's family lives. "I have been listening to the traffic from VU4 back to the India mainland, and by now it is smooth as silk with lots of H&W and some government messages running almost constantly," he said in an e-mail made available by QRZ DX <http://www.dxpub.com/> Editor Carl Smith, N4AA. Harpole advised amateurs worldwide to avoid the primary emergency traffic frequency of 14.190 MHz.

In Thailand, Harpole reports, hams have been using mostly 2 meters for their emergency traffic "and doing a huge job." He said he's heard very little from Bangladesh, and nothing from Sumatra and Burma (Myanmar). The earthquake's epicenter was some 100 miles off Sumatra, a part of Indonesia.

Just three days after the calamitous tsunami, Radio Society of Sri Lanka (RSSL) President Victor Goonetilleke, 4S7VK, declared that "uncomplicated short wave" radio had saved lives.

"Ham radio played an important part and will continue to do so," he said in an e-mail relayed to ARRL. Goonetilleke said Sri Lanka's prime minister had no contact with the outside world until Amateur Radio operators stepped in. "Our control center was inside the prime minister's official house in his operational room," he recounted. "[This] will show how they valued our services."

Horey Majumdar, VU2HFR, in Calcutta, said improvisation was "the name of the game" in the emergency's aftermath. "Hams had to switch to good old CW and switch frequencies from 14.190 and 14.160 MHz to 7.090 MHz," he said. Majumdar noted that hams from all over "have been checking into the VU emergency nets and extending their fullest cooperation in the truest spirit of Amateur Radio."

According to the latest estimate, more than 150,000 people died as a result of the tsunami, about one-third of them children.

Although the US does not have third-party traffic agreements with any of the countries affected by the disaster, international emergency and disaster relief communications are permitted unless otherwise provided. While FCC Part 97 has not yet been updated to reflect revisions to third-party traffic rules at World Radiocommunication Conference 2003, FCC staff has told ARRL that if the government agencies responsible for the Amateur Service in affected countries do not object to their amateur stations receiving messages from US amateur stations on behalf of third parties, the US has no objection to its amateur stations transmitting international communications in support of the disaster.

Things aren't all that friendly in one Friendswood, Texas, neighborhood, where a dispute over interference from one couple's battery chargers to a neighboring radio amateur has resulted in an official FCC Citation to the couple. The December 10 Citation is the latest chapter in a long-running dispute that FCC Special Counsel Riley Hollingsworth has described as "an unfortunate neighborhood situation." The Citation sprang from complaints by ARRL member William Cooper, W5ZAF, that his next-door neighbors' battery chargers were interfering with his ham radio activities. The FCC concurred "Investigation by the FCC's Houston Office revealed that on December 7, 2004, you were operating battery charging devices at your residence," the Citation said. "These devices were observed to be generating radio frequency pulses on various high-frequency radio bands. These radio frequency pulses were determined to be causing harmful interference to the Amateur Radio Service." Only after FCC agents visited the couple's home did the interference cease. The FCC did not make the couple's names public nor did it post the Citation on its Web site.

The ARRL Laboratory has been working with the FCC and Cooper to help broker a resolution to the interference issue FCC Part 15 rules regulating "unintentional radiators" require that the operator of such devices must cease operation upon FCC notification that it's causing harmful interference. "Operation may not resume until the condition causing the harmful interference has been corrected," the FCC said.

Since it began about a year ago--when Cooper first suspected the interference he was hearing came from his neighbors' Christmas lights--the squabble has escalated beyond the interference issue. Both parties have hired attorneys, and volumes of correspondence have changed hands. Last September, the couple complained that Cooper's antenna support structure violated homeowners' association covenants.

After notices from the FCC's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau went unanswered, Hollingsworth issued warning notices to the couple last June and September alleging that the battery chargers--apparently used to charge some electric scooters--were causing interference. Cooper provided his neighbors with free toroid core devices that resolved the interference, but the couple subsequently removed them. The couple told Hollingsworth they'd initially been willing to work with Cooper but took out the filters after he allegedly made disparaging remarks about them to another neighbor and took photos of their house and property.

Hollingsworth responded by emphasizing that it's the couple's responsibility to correct the interference--whether or not they accept Cooper's help. Simply unplugging the chargers when not in use--as they had suggested--was not an acceptable solution, he told them in his final Warning Notice. Cooper claimed the chargers had been operating 24 hours a day.

The FCC Citation, which does not require a response from the couple, warned that subsequent violations could lead to fines, equipment seizure and even possible criminal sanctions.

When four amateur radio operators headed to the Andaman and Nicobar islands a few weeks ago, armed with only basic equipment, backpacks and sun blocks, they had no idea that their fun hobby would soon become the islands' only lifeline.

"They went because it's a `high value' country for hams (amateur radio operators) since you need special permission from the Government to operate there," says Gopal Madhavan, an avid ham and one of the members of the governing council of the Amateur Radio Society of India. "The last time a ham operated in the Andamans was about 25 years ago."

The team, which came from across India, left Chennai on December 3 on their `DXpedition' (basically ham slang for an expedition to any foreign country). "They met here for a cup of tea before they left... There was a great amount of enthusiasm," says Gopal, carefully tuning his buzzing radio, alive with their voices crackling all the way from the islands. "They went to Port Blair, set up the equipment — all DXpeditions carry radios and dismantled antennas, which can be set up later with guy ropes — and contacted about 35,000 hams across the world."

Then, the earthquake began, followed by tidal waves, which swept over the small islands.

"They were actually in operation when the tremors began. Bharthi, the team leader, was talking to an Australian on the radio. He says her voice suddenly rose by a few octaves and she yelled `tremor'. Then, her radio went dead."

The islands were devastated by the quake and crashing waves. Phones died, the electricity went out and life in Andaman and Nicobar came to a stunned halt. On the airwaves too, there was a loud silence, as hams across the world held their breath, wondering whether the team had survived. However, about two hours later, unbelievably, they were back on the air.

"Every other form of communication was down. They were the only link from the Andamans to the mainland for several hours after the disaster," says Gopal, adding that the tsunamis had engulfed the island, paralysing all machinery and communication systems. The ham radio however, which was operating from a tower, was in working order, although the team did have to scavenge for batteries to get it operating again since it had been running on electricity.

In the tradition of hams, the team stayed on to help, the DXpedition was converted into an emergency network and hams from across the world, especially India, swung into action. Two more people headed to the islands to support the emergency network, and with help from the Indian Army, which is providing the hams with food, camping and batteries, the station on Port Blair continues to operate, while another station has been set up at Car Nicobar, which has been practically obliterated by the catastrophe.

Hams have time and again proved useful in situations like this where communication lines are down and emergency services have their hands full. "The police have to concentrate on law and order at this point, while the Army and emergency services have specific roles to play. Roles they cannot really deviate from because they have so much work to do," says Gopal.

He says they are often called upon by the Government to lend a helping hand since they are a mobile, usually well-connected, civilian group. Hams can set up radio stations even from their cars, travel around affected areas, identify people who need help and radio the police or hospitals. They can also mobilise men and materials since they have a vast network of millions of people from all walks of life, which covers the world. Port Blair, for instance, has just asked for 12 doctors so the hams are calling hospitals for help. "And while we co-ordinate from here, the ham control station in Delhi is talking to the Government to see if they can spare doctors," says Gopal.

Right now the main concern of the Andaman team is to find missing people. "We are getting calls from all over the world from people who are worried about friends and relatives," says Gopal. The teams in the islands field these calls, ask where the missing person was last seen and send people out to look for them. "However, with disasters like this, it is extremely difficult to find people since the tendency is to flee. What we can say is... well... if someone's dead and the body's been found," says Gopal. "We then radio back the news so that relatives are informed. (pause) That's been happening a lot."

Meanwhile, in Tamil Nadu, although the State Government has said they have the situation under control, hams from across South India are being mobilised anyway, to help in whatever ways they can. They have established stations in Vellankani, Cuddalore, Nagapattinam, Kanyakumari, Pondicherry and Thanjavur and have also set up control stations in the bigger cities, like Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Delhi. Gopal mans the Chennai station. His role is to co-ordinate rescue efforts and help transfer information, since most of the emergency ham stations work on batteries to save power and use long wire antennas, generally tied to a tree, and are hence relatively feeble. "Mobilising people has taken a while," says Gopal, "We have to find people with diesel cars because petrol vehicles don't work in water. We need people who drive Scorpios or Mahindra jeeps so they can travel with all the ham equipment and supplies."

In Sri Lanka too, the hams have moved to the East Coast, which has been devastated. Since there are very few hams there, hams from India are now being mobilised to travel to the island. Meanwhile, the radio waves have been inundated by people calling in to offer help. "Hams worldwide are getting involved. The Canadian hams are in the process of sending blankets, bed sheets and cooking utensils," says Gopal, "Everybody's offering aid. Everybody wants to help."

In Gujarat, for 10 days after the 2001 earthquake, hams were the only people who could communicate effectively. A number of them drove straight to Gujarat when they heard about the tragedy, using car batteries to power their radios so they could call for help whenever they found victims or unclaimed bodies.

Every time there's a cyclone, an air crash or disasters in open fields where communication is difficult, hams are called upon for help since their mobile radio systems always work. Often, one ham is stationed at the district collector's office, just so he can talk to the authorities.

Over the years, many hams have lost their lives when serving during disasters. Deepa, a young lady who went to Gujarat to help out, picked up a disease there and died. More recently, a Sri Lankan ham, who was in Iraq on a peace keeping mission as part of the UN group for communications, was shot dead.

Although hams have helped the government a number of times in emergency situations, red tapism is slowly choking amateur radio as a hobby. The laws, which were laid down in the days of the British Raj, are apparently "ridiculously outdated" today. For instance, according to the law, a ham can't leave home with his radio. Hence, ironically, every time they head out to help with disaster management, they're actually breaking the law.

However, last month, the Home Department and Ministry of Communication had a meeting in Delhi with the Amateur Radio Society of India, which seemed to finally acknowledge the efficacy of ham radio. The society submitted a paper asking for changes and has been told that it's been studied and the "departments concerned are looking into the issues."

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. __ Tsunami in South Asia __

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."