HRN 535: HEL(L)ENE 🌀

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Hurricane Helene 🌀 left a lot of destruction in its wake, especially in western North Carolina. Power, phone and internet were down over a wide area. So, ham radio stepped into the gap, right?

Sort of. HamRadioNow send requests for participation in our Sunday live show to statewide ARES officers in Northern Florida, Georgia, South and North Caroliona, with narry a peep in response.

Instead, we monitored some ad-hoc nets that sprung up on 40 meters and on a wide coverage 2 Meter repeater in the NC Mountains, carring mostly inbound welfare requests that mostly couldn’t be delivered because… well, who was going to deliver them? These nets had no local infrastructure or a cadre of hams who might be able to pick their way around roads closed by flooding and debris to find the people who relatives so desperately were trying to reach. But yet the nets persisted, hour after hour.

We did listen to a 75 Meter NC traffic net that actually passed an outbound message - the way it should be, except for how long it takes to send this kind of traffic by voice. So David W0DHG and Gary K4AAQ discuss the efficiency of sending this traffic as data… which they admit may well be going on, but who could tell? Another problem.

Gary’s griping may not be popular – there’s much back-patting and self-contratulating over this activity. And it may have actually gotten a few messages through… hard to tell. This, while any more official activity took place in shadows.

HRN 534: 21 Repeater Group FCC-ARRL Luncheon CONDENSED

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Last January, a repeater group in Harrisburg PA had some special guests at their monthly club lunch – a half dozen representatives from the FCC, and a couple of ARRL officials stopped by to talk about ham radio and GMRS, and answer questions from the assembled club members. Just your average club luncheon.

Fortunately, the whole thing was recorded and ended up on YouTube. However, it was nearly two hours long, and some of it was kind of rambling (we’re looking at you, K4AAQ). So, we cut it down to just the essense, about 30 minutes worth. We still recommend watching the whole thing – there are some stories and anecdotes that we cut out that are pretty entertaining. Maybe this edited version will whet your appitite for more.