Ham radio to the rescue

When communications went down in the East Coast region, Gisborne EIT Tairawhiti lecturer Steve Main came to the rescue.

With communications badly affected by Cyclone Gabrielle, and hearing that people were desperate to contact family and loved ones, MTA member Steve and a team of operators used old technology – ham radio - to get them connected.

“It proved to be a godsend,” Steve says. “We have a huge repeater network spanning from the top of the North Island to the bottom of the South Island, and we can use satellites and do point-to-point contact around the world.

“We set up a phone patch service so that people could talk to their families in Australia or England to say they are fine and they will be in touch, and that was the majority of our work.

“We also had two operators in Napier who were able to do welfare checks on people for families who couldn’t get through.”

All achieved thanks to a network of keen amateur radio operators around the country.

“There are many, many operators, and we had operators from Auckland down to Rangiora helping us achieve communications; they were using a phone patch system getting messages out.

“It was a team effort, that’s for sure, and once people started to find out they could use us to contact family it got really busy, especially with welfare checks.

“We had people communicating via social media and we would go out and check they were ok, and for some people we made phone links so family could hear their voices,” he says.

As the power was down for a day and half in Gisborne, Steve relied on a generator and battery backup. Now he says he would like to see ham radio have a higher profile.

“It is older tech, but just like in the old days sometimes it is the most reliable means and all you need is a battery, a radio and a wire,” Steve says.

For anyone wanting to know where to go if communications are down, the best start is their website NZART (New Zealand Association of Radio Transmitters Inc), which has a list of who to contact for each region.

Another group connected with NZART is AREC (Amateur Radio Emergency Communications) who have dedicated members around New Zealand for emergency situations.

What is ham radio?

According to NZART, amateur radio, also known as ‘ham radio’, is a hobby involving experimenting and communicating using not only radio but a range of technologies including satellites, the internet and even beams of light!

In New Zealand hams are licensed by Radio Spectrum Management (RSM). Once licensed, an amateur can operate two-way radio equipment from home, from vehicles and from anywhere in New Zealand, and in many cases when overseas too.

Bands of radio frequencies have been set aside for amateur radio use and they allow hams to communicate across town or around the world. The scope and possibilities are endless, from sending TV pictures and operating through amateur radio satellites to just having a quiet chat with friends at a distance