When HAM tided over jams

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Amateur radio (HAM) operators swung into action immediately when they heard news about earthquake and tsunami.

When all modes of communication, including cellphones got jammed due to hyper activity of the people, HAMs started to contact other operators in various parts of the state to help them to pass messages to their near and dear ones in the vicinity.

Some other operators were busy interacting with operators in the South East Asian countries to know the situation in their country.

Mr K. Rajesh (VU3RGK), an amateur radio operator, said that when he heard the news about earthquake and tsunami he logged on to 7050-megahertz in high frequency (HF), which HAMs in India use often to interact.

“We tune to regular frequency to communicate in times of emergency and today we had about 25 HAMs across the Southern states operating in 7050 frequency communicating with each other in an attempt to help others,” he said.

Mr Rajesh pointed out that all HAMs stayed for four hours communicated with each other until the union government withdrew tsunami alert.

Mr D. Ramakrishnan (VU2DRK), another HAM operator, pointed out that during 2004 tsunami, HAMs played a major role to establish communication between Cuddalore collectorate and Chennai.

“Today I spoke to the meteorology department and extended our support to set up a HAM station to help them have a second line of communicate to interact with their offices in various government agencies across the country, besides communicating with other operators across the world,” he added.