Amateur Radio Club: A Story from Region 2

Show Notes

Transcript

00:00:00:18 - 00:00:10:16
Ham Radio Club
(Ham Radio Chatter) Five, four, three, two, one.

00:00:13:21 - 00:00:44:19
Yamila El-Khayat
This is NNLM Discovery, a podcast from the network of the National Library of Medicine. I'm Librarian Yamila El-Khayat, and I'll be your host through this podcast series exploring how NNLM is engaging with communities to provide access to trusted information for the purpose of improving the public's health. Today's episode is Amateur Radio Club, a story from region two. User experience and education Strategist, Debra Trogdon-Livingston, will be joining us today. Hi, Debra.

00:00:44:19 - 00:00:45:22
Debra Trogdon-Livingston
Hi, Yamila.

00:00:45:22 - 00:00:51:11
Yamila El-Khayat
Our podcast episode started off a little different than normal. It sounded like two people on walkie talkies.

00:00:51:23 - 00:00:55:15
Debra Trogdon-Livingston
You're close. Those were two Hams doing a signal quality check.

00:00:56:04 - 00:00:58:04
Yamila El-Khayat
Hams... Like the pig.

00:00:59:03 - 00:01:13:01
Debra Trogdon-Livingston
No, not the pig. Ham is actually another name for amateur radio operators. Region two has made it a priority to provide grants for emergency preparedness and amateur radio clubs are essential for helping in disasters, as we'll learn in this story.

00:01:13:13 - 00:01:17:07
Yamila El-Khayat
So why is Region two focused on emergency preparedness?

00:01:17:12 - 00:01:42:03
Debra Trogdon-Livingston
Good question. One thing that makes Region two unique from other regions is that we're comprised of several states that get hit by severe weather events from tornadoes in Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee to hurricanes in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. We also represent Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, who are impacted by hurricanes, but also get a significant number of earthquakes, which could lead to tsunamis.

00:01:42:17 - 00:01:55:17
Debra Trogdon-Livingston
Today, I'll share how the NNLM provides grants which support technology and health information in ways that really meet the specific needs of our members. Our story takes place in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Yamila, what do you know about the U.S. Virgin Islands?

00:01:57:09 - 00:01:59:12
Yamila El-Khayat
I know they're in the Caribbean somewhere.

00:01:59:21 - 00:02:16:10
Debra Trogdon-Livingston
I get that. Before I joined our region, I didn't know much either. Ronda Herbert, our grant awardee, is a registered nurse. She also runs her own nonprofit, Health Dove Inc., which provides health information to the island as well as online. Here's Ronda describing the U.S. Virgin Islands for us mainlanders.

00:02:17:07 - 00:02:41:01
Ronda Herbert
The U.S. Virgin Islands, we are a group of islands four islands St. Thomas, St. Croix, St. John and Water Island. And they're a melting pot of different cultures. We're called paradise. And so everybody likes to come to the Virgin Islands. And we are about two and a half hours from Miami. It's tropical weather is always sunny, except for the hurricane season.

00:02:41:17 - 00:02:52:05
Ronda Herbert
This is the Caribbean. And so we're, we are accustomed to the storms and hurricanes, especially from June to November or the ending of November, which is hurricane season.

00:02:52:15 - 00:03:05:10
Debra Trogdon-Livingston
Saint Thomas, where Ronda resides, is only about 50 miles from Puerto Rico. And on a clear day, you can see this neighboring island across the ocean. Yamila, I'm sure you haven't forgotten what happened to Puerto Rico from Hurricanes Irma and Maria?

00:03:05:20 - 00:03:07:15
Yamila El-Khayat
Of course not. It was horrible.

00:03:08:02 - 00:03:16:18
Debra Trogdon-Livingston
Well, I think a lot of people have forgotten that the U.S. Virgin Islands were also hit by these two massive hurricanes. Here's Ronda talking about her experience during that time.

00:03:17:19 - 00:03:40:15
Ronda Herbert
2017, we had two major hurricanes, Category five Hurricanes, Irma and Maria. They came one week apart of each other. Yeah, I saw the islands were devastated. We were without electricity. We were without internet, cell phones, cell phone towers were out. It was, it was horrible.

00:03:41:15 - 00:04:03:21
Debra Trogdon-Livingston
Steve DeBlasio is the deputy director of logistics for VITEMA, which stands for Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency. VITIMA is the agency that ensures the territory's resilience to disasters. They are the counterpart to FEMA for the islands. Steve was assigned to help the islands after Irma and Maria. Here's Steve describing the aftermath of these hurricanes.

00:04:04:08 - 00:04:23:16
Steve DeBlasio
We were down power wise for months. Major damage to housing. Tremendous amount of housing was lost. Road damages, major landslides. It was, it was a clearly a very bad disaster zone.

00:04:24:14 - 00:04:53:05
Ronda Herbert
And I was I was stuck in a shelter with 170 other individuals. I was assisting during the shelter. And after that experience where we couldn't reach anybody, we couldn't call our families to get help or to tell them how we are doing. I decided, well there had to be another way. And so that's why I joined become a ham operator.

00:04:53:21 - 00:04:57:22
Debra Trogdon-Livingston
Yamila, did you know ham radio has been around for over a hundred years?

00:04:58:07 - 00:05:05:00
Yamila El-Khayat
A hundred years, and it's still being used. That's a long time for a radio and a ham to be around.

00:05:05:06 - 00:05:21:03
Debra Trogdon-Livingston
Yeah, it sure is. It has been around for a long time and it has saved a lot of lives. And it still does. It uses specific radio frequencies assigned by the Federal Communications Commission, FCC, in the U.S. Here's Steve DeBlasio again describing the technology.

00:05:21:20 - 00:05:50:06
Steve DeBlasio
Well, ham radio is the use of radio frequency across the airwaves. No wire connections at all. It's radio frequency. It is it is a way of communicating, when all else is down. All you really need is 12 volts of power to power your radio, or a handheld transceiver in your hand, and you can actually transmit voice and or data across the airwaves.

00:05:51:16 - 00:06:04:14
Ham Radio Club
This is a mobile radio, over. Roger, Roger, copy mobile radio. OK, you have a great afternoon. (Ham radio chatter)

00:06:05:10 - 00:06:12:21
Debra Trogdon-Livingston
We also talked to Henry Smith about this technology. Henry is a certified amateur radio instructor on Saint Thomas.

00:06:13:03 - 00:06:37:15
Henry Smith
You must have a license in order to speak on ham radio. You can listen. Anybody can listen. You can communicate with persons close by. Or you can communicate with persons all over the world. If you have proper antennas and you have the proper radio. Some people refer to a ham radio, oh it’s ancient technology, but I point out to everyone that it's the technology that works that seldom fails.

00:06:37:15 - 00:06:55:07
Henry Smith
Once you have it properly set up and people trained, it seldom fails. Astronauts. Astronauts on the space station. Most of them are already licensed in ham radio. They carry ham radio on the space station as standard equipment. Because when all else fails, they're confident that, you know, ham radio would work.

00:06:56:20 - 00:07:15:10
Debra Trogdon-Livingston
Now that we know what ham radio is, let's talk about Ronda's grant submission. There were two parts to her submission. The first was providing funding to host CPR and AED training for members of the Amateur Radio Club on the island. I asked Ronda and Steve why amateur radio operators should be trained in CPR and first aid.

00:07:15:19 - 00:07:47:01
Ronda Herbert
Ham operators they assist in disasters. They, we involve in rescue operations. We use our radios to help locate individuals who are lost and so if something should happen medically where somebody passes out or they need first aid, then amateur radio operators will be able to assist, provide CPR for that person, that individual who is ill or hurt until professional help arrives.

00:07:48:01 - 00:08:16:19
Steve DeBlasio
The value of that is because you never know when there's going to be a need that someone has for immediate medical attention, which could save their life. I am a ham radio enthusiast myself. My call sign is Kilo, Charlie two Lima Mike Zulu. I provide that amateur link back to VITEMA. The amateur radio folks and the equipment is always there to support emergencies.

00:08:17:13 - 00:08:25:10
Yamila El-Khayat
Impressive. It never occurred to me that ham operators could save lives. That's pretty nifty. What was the second part?

00:08:25:22 - 00:08:49:07
Debra Trogdon-Livingston
Good question. The second portion of the grant was purchasing repeaters to enhance the amateur radio signal throughout the island. Every day the club tests their signals and reports on the weather at 0700. Here's Henry testing out his small handheld transmitter signal on top of Crown Mountain. This test showcases the importance of repeaters, and Henry explains the technology.

00:08:49:19 - 00:08:56:14
Henry Smith
Victor Papa two Victor Kilo Alpha. This is Kilo, Papa two Juliet. Over.

00:08:56:14 - 00:09:00:08
Ham Radio Club
Kilo Papa two Juliet. This Victor Papa two Kilo Alpha. I copy, over.

00:09:01:04 - 00:09:09:14
Henry Smith
Good afternoon, Kion. Good afternoon. We were up here at Crown Mountain at the Repeater site. What's my signal like, Keyon?

00:09:09:14 - 00:09:14:19
Ham Radio Club
Henry you’re coming in five by nine. Excellent signal from you. Over.

00:09:15:08 - 00:09:25:07
Henry Smith
Five by nine. Five by nine. That's an excellent signal. Thanks for the report. You two are five by nine, Keyon. Where are you? Over.

00:09:25:17 - 00:09:31:22
Ham Radio Club
I am currently in Belmont Western Tortola, British Virgin Island, at home transmitting. Over.

00:09:32:13 - 00:09:54:06
Henry Smith
Thank you very much Keyon. Just wanted to do a radio check with you and be sure that we have communication going. Victor Papa two Victor Kilo Alpha Kilo Papa two Juliet 73 Keyon. The radio check that I just did was very important. We do them periodically. We need to check to see that we are maintaining communications in cases of emergency.

00:09:54:06 - 00:10:15:11
Henry Smith
In the event of emergency we might have power outages. Major equipment may be damaged. But with this little handheld radio I just demonstrated that I could speak to other persons across the island as well as someone in the British Virgin Islands. The person I spoke to, Victor Papa two kilo Alpha. That's his call sign. His name is Keyon.

00:10:16:02 - 00:10:42:03
Henry Smith
Keyon works with the Office of Disaster Management in the British Virgin Islands. He was about 20, 25 miles away and without the repeater we probably could not communicate with him. But this illustrates that with this little radio and aid of a repeater, we could speak to Keyon, and what the repeater does, it takes the signal from a small radio like this, a small five watt signal, and it repeats that signal.

00:10:42:03 - 00:11:08:23
Henry Smith
So persons at a distance so we can hear it. It does this using what you might think of almost as an amplifier within the repeater. It enhances a signal, it changes it from five watts to maybe 80 watts, and that allows the signal to go much further. The Virgin Islands is composed of many, many islands. So in order to communicate with places like Saint Croix, which is about 40 miles away, we need the repeaters.

00:11:09:14 - 00:11:18:01
Debra Trogdon-Livingston
Saint Thomas already has a repeater on the island, but Henry and Steve talk about why acquiring two more repeaters with this NNLM grant is such a big deal.

00:11:19:05 - 00:11:51:20
Henry Smith
It has a tremendous impact and we're very grateful to Ronda for applying for this grant. Why is so important is because with one repeater system, we might not have coverage over the entire island. Our island is mountainous and because of that, even though our antennas and our repeater is located at a high elevation, they are what we call shadows or dead zones that the signal may not be able to get into, because signals tend to be generally fairly straight.

00:11:52:05 - 00:12:15:16
Steve DeBlasio
If you don't have line of sight to that repeater, you're going to have a hard time hitting it. So to add additional repeaters into these, let me say blind spots. Without that, we do have folks who just are not going to be able to hit that, a repeater to get into the network. So it'll expand the capabilities of the responding amateur enthusiasts that are always looking to help.

00:12:16:11 - 00:12:22:19
Debra Trogdon-Livingston
We'll end our story with our grant awardee, Ronda. I asked her why this grant is so important to Saint Thomas.

00:12:22:19 - 00:12:45:03
Ronda Herbert
Oh, because we are an island and we are our closest help is two and a half hours away, because usually when we are impacted, Puerto Rico is also impacted, as well as the other islands, because of how they the hurricanes come up the chain. And so it's important to us to be able to reach out and get messages out for help and for assistance.

00:12:45:23 - 00:13:02:12
Ronda Herbert
That’s the reason why I got into ham radio, you know, it’s a service. Ham radio is a is a hobby and it's a service that brings together technology, communications and people. And so I'm doing this as a service to the community.

00:13:03:06 - 00:13:11:07
Yamila El-Khayat
Wow. Debra! What a powerful story. The network is investing in technology and health information in a whole new way.

00:13:11:07 - 00:13:22:11
Debra Trogdon-Livingston
You're right. We have an advisory committee who is trying to find ways to improve emergency preparedness throughout our entire region. And we will continue to look for ways to support these efforts.

00:13:23:04 - 00:13:25:17
Yamila El-Khayat
Thanks Debra, for sharing your region's story with us.

00:13:26:04 - 00:13:29:03
Debra Trogdon-Livingston
You're welcome. We're already working on our next one.

00:13:30:00 - 00:13:54:21
Yamila El-Khayat
We’ll be featuring other profiles, grants and interesting information from all of our regions during this season of NNLM Discovery. For more information, including a video featuring content from this story, check out the links within this episode's description. The NNLM offers free training, partnerships, and many other valuable resources that help to improve health and wellness in communities across the country.

00:13:55:09 - 00:13:57:05
Yamila El-Khayat
Learn more at NNLM.gov.