By John Driscoll
Eureka Times Standard (California)
Copyright 2006 Times - Standard
All Rights Reserved
A sobering message came with the wind this week: We are the thickness of one cable away from being unable to communicate with our remote region’s neighbors.
A cut-through fiber optic cable -- above ground and subject to the whims of the wind -- wiped out Internet service, much cellular service and long-distance phone service. And it wasn’t even much of a storm, by North Coast standards.
While local tech proponents push AT&T to build more redundancy into its system, it’s worth noting that over the past few years emergency services and a group of volunteers have been putting together a rock-solid system that would be a link to the outside world during a major disaster.
Comparatively, ham radio is low tech. But it is reliable.
“In disasters, they always work,” said Dan Larkin with the Humboldt County Sheriffs Office of Emergency Services.
The systems that office and the Department of Public Health have been installing recently can help link hospitals and clinics with emergency services locally, and reach Sacramento to report damages and needs during a crisis.
The $40,000 spent on such systems so far has come through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The equipment alone is important, but licensed operators are equally vital. Through the Humboldt Amateur Radio Club, the Office of Emergency Services can call on volunteers to staff radios around the county.
The goal, Larkin said, is to have ham radio systems in all the police and fire stations, clinics, hospitals and schools in the county.
“This is one extra level of backup that you hope you never need,” said John Olson, president of the radio club.
The systems are not impressive looking. The one at the Eureka Fire Department doesn’t even fill up a small computer desk. It has a 2-meter radio which can be used to communicate locally, then a dual-bank HF radio and a 440-meter radio, which can be used to reach distant areas like Sacramento. Aside from voice transmission, the radios can also transmit data.
In a major earthquake, said Engineer Kevin Voorhees, it’s equipment like that the department will need. Voorhees has been working with ham operator Bob Colburn to install the radios and their antennas since before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast.
“Katrina really brought home the point of communications problems,” he said.