- w w w . h a m s e x y . c o m -

The ORIGINAL online journal of the scary, ugly and sometimes soul-shattering world of
HAM RADIO

Monday, October 18th 2004
Update by: Tom VE3LT

[Editor's note: We are pleased to present the following article by our guest submitter Tom VE3LT, a very active and experienced ham located in Niagara Falls, Ontario]

Hello everyone and a special hello to Mike for submitting that excellent story about the Toronto comms. Mike and I go way back.

I have to empathize with Mikes comments and thanks Bryan for your candid comments about the Great Blackout. I too was listening to the tower net and silently giggling to myself at the lack of ARES leadership in this huge event in our area, while I sat in my shack with full power on in my house. However, to be a Hamsexy geek I still used my battery backup in my shack on my dual band radio for a hoot to monitor the noise...or lack of any ARES gibberish, with all the lights on. Hey...its always good to test your equipment, isn't it? So I chatted with the locals on their paperweights...oops, I mean handhelds to pass the time.

As I said, I was one of the VERY FEW that had power during the entire blackout last year, as we were not interrupted by this event. Only two blocks from my house though, was the rest of the corner of North America without power!!! Thank goodness for Hydro at Niagara Falls! So sitting in my shack bored I thought what the hell...lets see if there is anything going on... After all, I am a long time Amateur Radio Operator, skilled in many disciplines, available for callout and a willing participant in any function...and an ARES Registered member. (sorry I should not have admitted that...grin:)

Nothing heard... One of the biggest events of the decade and nothing on the air but silence. So I started to scan the frequencies when I heard Bryan on the air giving his updates and bravo to that... I started thinking, was I the only one along with about fifty of my neighbors that had power in the upper quarter of North America? Maybe that is why there is no activity as there is no Hydro?

As I said before I am an avid volunteer. I try to NOT be Hamsexy, but do have a trailer for Communications that we use for other functions such as Field Day, Special Event Stations and educational things like taking it to schools to show kids what Ham Radio is all about.  It's mainly to keep out of the rain when we play radio for fun and keep our heads dry. I like to keep it light hearted. We have members of the Police, EMS and Fire who are members of our little group of enthusiasts, but we do NOT have red or blue light bars, nor uniforms, nor real spiffy Hamsexy hats! We just try to help out when and where we are needed. (there are clubs all over Ontario who know exactly who we are and what we do)

Back to the blackout, I did get a communication on our repeater from a local Ham in our club and he told me they were contacted because a man in town needed to have power to operate his oxygen machine and A/C for the house, as he was recently released from Hospital, and was at home in the dark. We quickly gathered a couple of guys and we towed my trailer over to his house and set up the generator to operate electricity to supply his life saving equipment. It was Ham Radio and the equipment we purchased through club activities that saved the day there. We also set up our second generator at another needy place of necessity in town and no...not for Ham Radio purposes. No Hamsexiness... just doing the right thing when we were needed.  The funny thing is the other ham clubs in the area have mocked us for years for owning all the apparatus that we do, but come field day or some special event station, who is called to save a few dollars on rental of equipment. We are...Who else is willing to bring out expensive radio gear and antennas to place on a public picnic table? Not their stuff so lets call the local geeks!

I remember over a decade ago they actually had an argument during another rival club meeting, about purchasing a generator and quote "the upkeep is too much for a generator" I was so annoyed at this comment, our club went out and bought one generator and then a second one, not out of spite, but to save the annual hassle of begging, borrowing or stealing one for field day events etc.

We have had the generators for fourteen years and have only put gas and oil in it and one spark plug. It still starts on the first pull every time! Boy that is a lot of upkeep...whewwwwwwwww! (sense my antagonistic zinger?)

I echo the sentiments of the Halifax group and their stories, but as we all know there are always a few Hamsexy individuals that give all of us a bad name. Having been a former AEC for my area at one time long ago, I know where we draw the line and act as backup for some purposes. I tend to agree with many of the comments of the latest postings that Ham Radio is not as necessary as it used to be, but there are times when it does come into play, and I will not bore you with the many examples you can read for yourself on ARES and CANWARN pages. I do however wish to comment with one thought in mind...

We here who are Federally Licensed Amateur Radio Operators (many with a clear conscience) who are already qualified to operate radios (in most cases) and carry on in a semi-professional fashion if asked to do so in any situation, and are already ARES qualified. We need no (stinkin') badges, just the desire to do public volunteer work in times of need. We don't need to be in a form of an elite clique' of persons who delegate authority, because as Amateurs with good intentions, we could take suggestions to do tasks without the aid of some Nazi-minded individual or some technically alienated lackey who has difficulty remembering a persons name or what frequencies are duplexed! I think you know the type I am referring to? Our licence should put us in a pecking order just above CBer's so lets act like it!

Just like a Northern Ontario or a BC fire - if you are driving down the road and there is a fire, you can be dragged out of your car and given a shovel and told to dig. You are clocked in and clocked out, and about a month later you will get a cheque in the mail for your efforts of being a good Samaritan. The same goes for Ham Radio. If an RCMP pulled you over because of your ham plates and asked to use your radio, you would have to comply! Look it up in the Radio Act of Canada and the RIC's. This is why you are granted the right to operate on those frequencies.

My point is to keep it light hearted and if a Ham Operator is needed in times of emergency, the ones with good Samaritan qualities, good operating procedures and level headed public conscience Amateurs will come out of the woodwork to help out. You don't need a uniform or blinky lights on your rusty 79 Chevy pickup to be a cool dude? You just need to know your place and help when called upon.

I volunteer my time for Civil Air Patrol as well as I am a long time pilot and a navigator. We are extremely well trained as volunteers. Previously I have been part of some pretty bad cluster fuck operations for search and rescue outside of the present organization I now volunteer for. The Civil Air Patrol have excellent training. However there are other wannabe groups in the area and I have seen what these semi-professional groups try to do (and its pretty pathetic). These civilian "Hamsexy" wannabes don't know how to read a compass! I took part in one of these out of goodwill a few years back looking for an old man who wandered away from an old folks home. This local search coordinator wannabe called our Amateur Radio Club and asked us to help so we went out in large numbers. (all at the notice of the event on our local club repeater) This search group had no maps, no radios communications, no strategy for search and NO CLUE! We showed up with the club trailer and equipment as requested and ended up taking over the days activities to my dismay. I personally did NOT want that to happen, but as I said this whole crew was a cluster fuck waiting for the next Tim Horton's break. I have never witnessed a sadder sight! I took the reins and set up a search area and sent one ham from our club with every five civilian volunteers in groups and set up areas of coverage. It was sad to see that the group that called for our clubs help, is in fact a Search Group of civilians run by two women who don't have a pennies sense between the two of them! I guess every city has one of these types of (dis)organizations? Oh well... grin and bear it and do the best job you can...
 
Remember it's only a hobby ladies and gentlemen.
 
We never found the old guy, but it was a good day of shoe leather exercise for about a hundred people I never met before in my life and who never heard of Ham Radio!

Be proud to be an Amateur and be humble about your abilities and know that there are guys out there that are capable of doing good work when called upon. Don't expect the calls to be frequent as we are all a dying breed. Don't expect any "addaboys" or pats on the back either for your hard work and effort as you are quickly forgotten. Look at the Ice Storm...(Amateur what?) For gods sake don't be a lid or Hamsexy yourself, but please keep the funny pictures coming in of those that are.