When I was a kid, amateur radio operators, aka “hams,” were fairly common. There was some sort of ham operator club in the western suburbs of Chicago my history teacher belonged to, and while they apparently spent most of their time on air chatting with distant hams, he was always telling us of the valuable role ham operators played in natural disasters.
I haven’t heard or seen anything about ham radio in a very long time. Did it become obsolete? If not, does it still have a role in disaster relief, or have cell phones and the internet replaced it entirely?
Ham radio isn’t as popular as it used to be, but it’s still around.
Communications in general have become more robust over the years, and the internet in particular is fairly “self healing” (that was kind of the point behind inventing it). Still, if you get a major disaster like a hurricane, cell towers can be damaged or destroyed and communication lines can be wiped out. Cell towers in particular also tend to get completely clogged up during emergencies as everyone tries to contact their loved ones.
While communications are less likely to be completely lost these days than they were a few decades ago, ham radio operators still often help out during emergencies. Ham radio is kinda considered to be old technology these days, so their efforts don’t get as much press as they used to, but ham radio operators still do help.
There is an organization called ARES - Amateur Radio Emergency Service. These are licensed ham radio operators who volunteer their time and equipment during emergencies. They register themselves and what equipment they have available to their local ARES chapter so that the group can coordinate what they have available with whatever the local emergency situation needs.
My brother was an enthusiast for a while and spent a good deal of money and time on it. The most exciting things seemed to be that it was raining in Phuket and sunny in Ulan Bator. (Or was it the other way around?)
I used to know 3 or 4 hammers back in the late 80s-early 90s (no, I’m not counting MC.) Ham radio was exciting for the chance to talk to strangers hundreds or sometimes even thousands of miles away without having a long-distance phone bill. The Internet has made that thrill very quaint.
However the demographics seem older. In an era when instant worldwide communications are taken for granted, there is less mystique in doing that via radio. There are also many other technically interesting hobbies competing for attention.
But despite improvements in resiliency, commercial telecom systems can still be fragile and prone to collapse. During the recent hurricane in Puerto Rico, telecom systems were out for a long time. Ham radio still plays a role in cases like that.
In 2012 the historic sailing ship HMS Bounty sank and the crew was unable to call for help using satellite phone or conventional methods. They finally got a message out using the ham radio Winlink system and were rescued: https://www.winlink.org/tags/hms_bounty
Modern ham radio equipment is very advanced. Software defined radios now handle all decoding and encoding as digital data:
One thing that makes the modern Internet so robust is that it can be carried over almost any sort of communications medium imaginable. Including ham radio. So in the aftermath of a disaster, some of those tweets and texts might be making their way out via ham.
(also including carrier pigeon, but that was only done as a joke)
Unfortunately, there is never a shortage of war zones and disaster areas. Here is a list of services provided by the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (led by the World Food Programme); basic Internet is supposed to be up within 24 h, for example.
It stands to reason that some of the volunteers in the field might be ham (i.e. amateur) radio operators, though many of the participating organizations are obviously not amateur associations. Some sort of official aegis (the UN in this case) is necessary as far as it facilitates getting funding, authorization from local governments, travel documents for the workers, etc. Skills, experience, and teamwork are what is necessary; not sure it matters whether individuals are specifically amateurs or professionals.
The U.S. military has regular “very bad day” tests, which includes communication between the military and amateur operators, simulating what would happen after “the simultaneous loss of all communications nationwide”.
Im stunned at the sheer number of hams. It has me wondering why I never see anything about them in the media during disasters. Is it because ham radio has no sex appeal or what?
My husband was a ham for several decades, but based on his experience I’d say a lot of what ham used to be used for is now done via the internet. So yes, there are still ham operators out there, but it’s a much more narrow niche than it used to be even if the absolute numbers have risen.
(If there are any hams out there who remember someone using the handle “Thunderhawk” located in Chicago, that was my husband.)
My brother has had a ham license since he was a teenager (>30 years). He renewed his license several years ago, $50 for 10 years.
Nowadays, it’s mostly a hobbyist thing (which my brother hasn’t participated in for a long time) but they play a valuable role in disasters when all other utilities are out.
ETA: Several years ago, I was house-hunting, and there was a sign in the garage with ham license call letters on it. The Realtor didn’t know that’s what it was, and assumed that those license plates had some Scandinavian word on them.
Sure, but let’s make the distinction between encrypted and encoded. The former is not legal but the latter sure is. The new hotness in the world of ham radio is the ever expanding variety of digital modes. Some of those modes are for extremely low power transmission of highly structured contacts just to stretch the limits of weak signal propagation and others can route digital info of nearly any type.
My local ham club, in conjunction with other clubs up and down the coast, operates a mesh network that could (in theory at least) route limited amounts of email and chat messages on battery power to the nearest node with functioning internet connectivity.
Similarly, email could easily be routed over HF out of an affected area using WINMOR or PACTOR or a bunch of other protocols I don’t know enough about.
You may be mistaking CB radio for ham radio. Not the same thing. CB radio is an unlicensed service utilizing 40 channels in the 26/27MHz range, and limited to four watts output (in the USA). Ham radio users are licensed, must pass a written test, and are issued callsigns which must be used as identification over the air. In ham radio, your “handle” is your first name, which is used in conjunction with your FCC assigned call sign. There are many different ham frequency bands authorized; there is much more frequency spectrum available to hams than in the CB band.
I hold an Extra ticket which is the top leve amateur license. My activity levels rise and fall like most of my other interests and hobbies. Lately, I haven’t been very active, mostly due to the lousy propagation which affects my primary area of interest: QRP DX. That’s very low power transmitting (5 watts or less) over long distances. So far, I’ve had a few confirmed QSLs (contacts) of over 5000 miles (Southern Chile and Siberia) with those 5 W using some wire antennas in my attic ceiling. I have been able to talk to Cuba using one Watt multiple times from my Chicago QTH (location). The sun goes through a 11 year cycle and we’re near the solar minimum now. That really hurts my low power performance and contributes to my lack of activity.
Amateur radio is pretty well known to be comprised of an older demographic. I’ve been to a lot of hamfests including the gigantic Dayton Hamvention about 8 times. There’s a lot of gray hair and mobility scooters. The hobby has a bit of a reputation for curmudgeonly resistance to change but that’s, well, literally dying off. At the same time, there are a fair number of younger hams that bring some needed enthusiasm into the mix. The makers’ movement has been cited as one reason. Another is the emergence of drones. Apparently, a number of drone operators are using ham bands for telemetry and other signalling. There’s a pretty active subreddit with a lot of younger hams which is nice to see.
I just set my scanner to search the entire VHF band and the UHF band through 1.2GHz. These bands are not significantly affected by those figured. I heard zero voice and only one data signal which might have been a non-amateur ISM device. That’s pretty low activity for a metropolitan area the size of Chicagoland. While there may be more hams in absolute numbers, overall activity seems reduced.
That was probably citizens’ band or CB radio handle. It’s an unlicensed service and doesn’t use official callsigns. Amateur radio service has a examination and license requirement and Federally issued callsigns must be used. Ham callsigns are one or two letters, a Number and then as many as three more letters.
My son (15) is in radio club at high school. They do telemetry for the high milage car club. They also participate in disaster simulations, but my son has not yet participated in that.
He just got lowest level license. Now looking to get equipment.