Old Tech When We Need It

 

There’s nothing new, unfortunately, about a hurricane making landfall in Florida or the Gulf Coast and causing damage, but sometimes, the worst part is about where the storm goes after that. The inland Southeast, especially Appalachia, wasn’t quite expecting a storm like Helene.

The mountainous region of western North Carolina has a few sizeable cities, like Asheville. The flooding there was catastrophic. But much of the area’s population is in small hamlets tucked away in valleys. Many of these communities lost the only road in and out, along with power, water, internet, and cell phone service. Such areas tend not to have a large enough public safety force to quickly help citizens in simultaneous distress, especially when cell phones aren’t working.

Into the communications breach stepped amateur radio operators, also called hams. Armed with handie-talkies and mobile radios, technology that dates well back into the 20^th century, they became instant reporters, feeding storm damage information into a repeater network with an antenna atop 6,700-foot Mt. Mitchell, the highest point east of the Mississippi. The hams in the field also turned into health-and-welfare checkers. Through their efforts, the network was able to reassure many local residents that their loved ones in other towns were OK.

It has long been a hobby of mine to use the internet to find the live streams of commercial radio stations in disaster areas, as I was a radio news director myself. This time, through a service called Broadcastify, I was able to listen to that North Carolina ham network from home here in California.

With the call sign N2GE, the repeater had been set up earlier by a local amateur operator for his regional ham community, mostly for casual use. The Helene disaster turned that network into a central hub for updates about where people were trapped, where roads and bridges were washed out, and later, where area residents who could travel could find food, water, gas, and shelter.

N2GE became just as informative as any commercial broadcaster. It is still active, and the ham in charge, called the net control, responds to all his colleagues calling in with information and even reads a daily newscast consisting of official updates from surrounding counties. He is as good as any professional news anchor or talk-show host. But he, and all the other participants in the net, are unpaid volunteers.

We’re used to carrying a little device in our pocket that can communicate with anyone anywhere, bring us anything we need, and answer any question we have – until it can’t. Then we need people like these North Carolina hams. This is one of those times when maybe we should thank amateur radio operators for THEIR service.