Looking for stories of real world use emergency need or similar. Not casual talking but some sort of needed communication outside of daily life?

None from me sorry still lurking and learning going for my lic soon.

LIke this?Joplin

Most of the local weather spotters use HAM radio for communications. In fact there is a group of them setting up a statewide UHF DMR network. 

A few years ago I was listening to the Win system on IRLP and heard a station call May Day. Evidently he went out hiking and (a) lost track of time, (b) wasnt paying attention to the weather, and (c) wasnt dressed appropriately, found himself with the sun about an hour from setting and outside of cell coverage.
At least he had some sort of HT.

I listened to one station who answered the May Day act as the controller relaying between search and rescue and the guy. They ended up calling in a helo to rescue the guy due to time. Still took a couple hours.

Cool story

Outside of hurricanes, we had wildfires a few years ago. Trapped one of my friends when the interstate was closed. I talked to guys in the local area (about 150 miles away) over the air to provide directions for an alternate route.

Did I make it in before Cale?

Ham Radio During Katrina

The Hurricane Watch Net. They're active during any storm that threatens the Caribbean islands. The National Hurricane Center in Miami, FL has a ham radio station that's active during net activation, so information to the islands is as current as what the mainland media get.

For several years our ham radio club provided communications for bicycle races. A couple of our members were cyclists, so we also had imbeds.

Several of us provided links during cross country events at a local equestrian college. Good way to meet crazy horse chicks!

Couple of years ago, my wife was walking our Siberian Husky, about a mile from the house. The dog was bitten by a snake, in her paw. The dog was in pain and could not walk. My wife tried calling me but the call did not go through. We have terrible cell phone coverage over here. My wife remembered she had a 2m. HT radio with her. I heard her call me, got in the car and was there several minutes later.
The dog weighs 70 lbs. We had to lift her up and put her on the back seat. Good thing one of the vet clinics was open until 10:00 that day. They gave her (the dog) some medication and told us how to take care of the wound. She recovered within several days and could walk without a limp 5 days later.

How many are aware of the Wilderness Protocol? http://www.mcminnarc.com/wilderness.html

When I was down in Texas, my brother and I went to my nephew's house to watch a football game. During the game, we could hear thunder and see lightning. Eventually lightning struck close enough to blow out the power for a minute or two. When the TV came back on, they were running across the bottom that severe weather was moving into the area (no duh!). After the game was over, my brother wanted to go back to his house because his wife had to work and was at the house by herself. The storm was getting worse by the minute. I had my HT hooked up to an amplifier in the rent car I was using (thankfully a Jeep). I'd had the presence of mind to program in one of the local SKYWARN repeaters and tuned in to that. As we were driving back, we got real time info on exactly where the funnel cloud was so we could adjust our route to not drive in front of it.

When we got to his house, I had another radio there. It was interesting to hear the SKYWARN folks giving first-hand, as-it-is-happening reports and hearing the net controller make sure NWS got a good copy on the report. It took about 10 minutes for the same report to show up on the TV crawler. Ten minutes would mean the difference between making it to shelter or being shocked as the wind tore up your house.

Seems like a good use case to me.

Back around 1993, I was working as a resident deputy in a small county in Northern Nevada and had a 2 Meter radio in my patrol vehicle.
I heard a guy come on a repeater, Which was a long way from me in another county asking for help, reporting a bad injury car crash.

He wasn't getting any answer in his area, so I asked him where he was and what happened. Turned out there was a two car head on north of Winnemucca, towards McDermitt  on US 95.
Since I was in Eureka County, but at a real high elevation I could hear him, but was just too far away to really do anything but call someone for him.

I had my dispatcher call Humboldt County, and they sent their guys and an ambulance out.
I hear later that one person died and several were pretty seriously injured.

I never did get the other hams call sign who called for help. The only thing I knew was that he was not involved in the crash.

I have to say that that was the first time I used a ham radio to help someone, but since then, there have been a couple of others.

My church's use of ham radio during Katrina got me wanting my tech license.

My first personal use of HAM radio during an emergency was in Houston 2007.

We had 8 kids at the house under 12.  Ours and another families we were watching.  Dinnertime the house was rocked by the explosion and rumble of the flames.  My best guess at the time was a chemical truck on a major road near by had exploded with who knows what.

Got on the ham radio to the local repeater and learned it was natural gas line close but far enough away we could shelter in place.

Saved me from evac. with a ton of kids.

I used to work all the Skywarn nets back in the 90s when I was more active in ham radio.

I don't consider this a major thing, but I did help someone out in a minor way.  I worked the Skywarn net back in October 1995 when Hurricane Opel hit.  We lost power, but I had two fully charged 12 volt batteries, so I switched over to battery power for my scanner and 2M base-mobile.  Monitoring the local PD frequency, I heard about a major US highway in our area being closed due to fallen power lines and power poles.  A short while later, a ham who was trying to make it home was asking about road conditions on that same US highway.  I was able to give him the message about the road being closed, so he was able to take another route home.

Was in high school when Hurricane Hazel hit the Southeastern coast of North Carolina (Oct 15, 1954). Our Industrial Arts instructor was a ham, and called all the hams in school to the Industrial Arts building. He went home, got his transmitter, receiver, and a 75 Meter dipole, which we commenced to string up in the oak trees beside the building -- in gale force winds. We checked into the Tarheel Emergency Net and were on the air until the power went out, then we all high-tailed it for our homes.

It ripped the shingles from the roof of our house, blew down a large brick chimney, and stripped the branches from the pine trees in our yard. We were in the process of adding a new room to the house and the windows hadn't been caulked yet. We were kept busy mopping up water and emptying buckets. A couple of days later, the plaster ceiling in my bedroom fell because of the water damage.

Hurricane Hazel obliterated Long Beach, NC



Hurricane Matthew acted very much like Hazel as it came through the Caribbean and up the Southeastern coast. Many that had gone through Hazel had a very bad feeling about Matthew as it approached  the US.

Dude falls outta tree, impales himself with 16 penny nails, Xband Repeater Saves the Day (and he's an ARFCOM'r)

same story on eHam

mountain rescue

and on and on

2015 we had a fiber optic line get cut by vandals that ended up knocking out cellphones, 911, internet, and cc machines for a day. AZ has a couple badass linked repeater systems, so a bunch of guys got on and relayed info, and made courtesy phone calls on behalf of people who could not get through to check on family members.

They also relayed a few highway accident calls, and other misc crap. Kind of cool to see everyone jump in and help, even in a piddly non-emergency.

This is a bit of an older story but it still shows the importance of amateur radio and how it can play a practical role. Please note, due to the events the actions portrayed were never documented and such is only survived and passed down in legend by local amateur radio operators and SPAG EOC's.

On the evening of May 11, 1970 two tornadoes (one F4 and one F5) touched down in Lubbock, TX. The F5 tore down Broadway running straight over the Bell regional head quarters…only one long distance line survived the onslaught (to Dallas). A local ham (unknown) got on his radio and managed to reach another ham in San Antonio…who worked for Pearl Brewery. The next morning, one of the first USAF cargo planes to touch down at Reese AFB was packed plumb full of cases of Pearl beer…water.

So as the oral history is recorded, several things came from May 11, 1970. Metro Tower (then Great Plains Life) became the second tallest building to survive a direct hit from an F5 tornado (tallest is Alico in Waco) which is just a block from that Bell regional HQ building, a brewery ceased bottling beer and began bottling water (one of the first recorded instances of what has now become standard practice) for disaster relief, and amateur radio provided a means of long distance communications (it would be two weeks before the phone lines were repaired).

It's scary to hear that a small fiber-optic cable could knock out essential communications in the whole area. You'd think they should have double redundancy for this.

In 2013 an optic bundle got cut in somewhere in west Texas…couldn't make any phone calls, not even local.

Modern communications via wire / internet etal. is nice but still too delicate.

Here are some links:

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/vandalism-in-arizona-shut-down-internet-cellphone-telephone-service-across-state/

https://www.google.com/amp/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/arizona-internet-phone-lines-centurylink-fiber-optic-line-cut-vandalism/

On an unrelated note, about a decade ago, a fuel pipeline was hit by construction, which caused some shtf type gas shortages for a week.

AZ seems to not do well with redundant infrastructure, because we don't have the weather/flood/natural probs the rest of the country plans for and lives with.

The Great Flood in August 2016 in South Louisiana.

Call came out for any radio amateur to assist. What was needed was hams at Red Cross shelters to assist in communications. Grabbed some spare stuff had lying around, my go bag and reported to Red Cross Headquarters.

"A shelter opened three days ago and headquarters hasn't heard from them since. Here's the address. Go."

Got to the shelter, got set up in less than an hour, then checked in with the shelter manager. Cell service down. Internet down. Land lines down. National Guard on duty couldn't help. Once I explained that I have already checked in with HQ she grabbed my arm and said "Come with me!" Got a whole laundry list of messages to pass. One was truly emergency traffic. Got that one out first and waited on the response. Passed the written response to the shelter manager and she gave me a hug with near tears in her eyes said Thank You. Went back to processing the priority traffic. Due to privacy concerns I can't tell you what traffic I passed but I'll let you know that it made a difference in the welfare of the 150 shelter clients we housed.

36 hours later cell service was more or less back up and I was redundant. Stuck around another 12 hours to ensure all was good then got the call from ARES to stand down.

The experience no joke literally changed my life. Working toward getting my certs to assist in the future. IS 100, 200, 700, and 800 are completed. Working toward Red Cross training in Disaster Services Technology where amateur radio fits in.

Hank, good post. What type of radios were you using to pass traffic? Vhf/UHF or HF?

Arrow dual band J-pole on a mil-surp fiberglass tent pole mast up 16 feet. Yaesu Ft-7600 at 50w using both VHF and UHF. Power was one of the power supplies I had laying around. Don't remember which one. Did have a generator backup if needed.

What worked for us is that we have a flexible network of repeaters where net control/headquarters/HMFIC can add or subtract what is needed for the situation. Ping one repeater you've pinged them all. Was pretty cool in that each op had a big overview of what going on around him. Definitely had the big picture view. All the clubs in the area are on board with this and if everything is turned on half the state of Louisiana is covered. The mucky mucks are working with the ARES group in Mississippi to tie their stuff with us. Would help in say the next hurricane that could affect an area spanning both states.

HF may be in the future but the immediate plan is to bulletproof the repeater system. Standby generators, portable generators, solar power, alternative pipelines for the network. Lots being looked at right now.

One thing we're leaning toward is the use of 3 element yagis for VHF/UHF. Here and there the vertical omni was marginal to ping the repeater due to buildings and terrain and where we were allowed to set up.

Back when i was first licensed (1994) dad and I were making a run down to see the family in the TX panhandle.   Got west of Wichita on 54 highway about 11pm and a massive storm was blowing thru.   Pulled over to wait it out but no use, so we carried onward.

 Passed a town, no hotel rooms due to something going on in Wichita.  They called a few in the next town, same result.  So we got back in and kept driving.  I jumped on my 2 week old HTX-202 w/mag mount, grabbed a hardcopy of a repeater book and tuned up a repeater a nearby.  

Got in contact with a guy that made some more calls for us well west of his town.  He stumbled on one hotel that had one room and had it held for us for 1 hour. Chatted a bit till I lost the repeater.  Got there, and there was a guy that had passed us waiting.  Guess if we didnt show, he got our room.  


Contacted him on the return and thanked him again.  Year later, going back thru we met for lunch on us.  He likely racked up a small longdistance bill for us that night.  

Dad bought me a mobile rig shortly after.  

This post really shows piss poor management and a lack of common sense…3 days? Yes boots on the ground are limited but seriously, 3 days and no welfare check was performed? True emergency traffic and no one attempted to even go to HQ to report? Obviously you made it in one piece so it could've been done if it was an emergency.

Years ago, long before cell phones, the Navy had me based in Key West. Seems like once a year, the main phone cable would get cut somewhere up the Keys by a construction crew, and you would not be able to call the mainland.  You might be able to call, say Marathon, but that would be it.  I wasn't a ham then, but it certainly could have come in handy.



But that was nothing compared to  when the draw bridge in Islamorada would get stuck in the "open" position for a day.

I don't judge. My job is a communicator. Nothing else. Was it 3 days? Maybe. Maybe not. Those were my marching orders and I followed them.

Widespread disruptions by their nature are chaotic. The time I was monitoring the situation I'd hear of a shelter opening, then 4 hours later closing as it would be consolidated with another. Another would open but with no water or electricity it would quickly close and those clients would be transferred somewhere else and the response resources deployed elsewhere. My shelter had ebb and flows to it. Population varied by the hour. Situation was very fluid.

There is no way every contingency can be planned for regardless of what the gummit and NGO sources tell you. You make the best decision you can with the information you have available.

Of course. Just saying in hindsight, very poor management on the RC's side of things which may have been something addressed in future deployments after the fact. It just goes to show though, even the best plan goes out the window the second the deification hits the oscillation.

I monitor 146.52 all the time either at home or in the car just in case.  I know that a bunch of others in the area do as well.  

This week the wife attended a volunteer training session with a national organization.  I tagged along.   The wife and I would be leading groups of kids into wilderness areas etc.  They brought up emergency plans, cell phones etc.  "if you go into an area more than 30 minutes from emergency services such as cell phone dead zones you must carry a first aid kit and have someone trained in wilderness first aid."   I spoke up about always carrying a first aid kit, being a former medic, and always carrying a ham radio.   I got the deer in headlights look, blink blink...   You know, amateur radio?  A lot of the areas we go into have no cell service so I carry a ham radio, extra batteries, antenna, etc.  I can usually hit a repeater with no problems.  Someone is almost always listening.    I guess the trainer could not even comprehend ham radio being an emergency tool.  I plan to bring it up again at the next meeting.  Now the wife may actually get her license.