What use is an F-call?

An article in the local paper caught my eye. It described a scenario where a local amateur with a 15m antenna mast was in the process of dealing with a local council who apparently changed their mind about the rules which govern the installation of the mast. There were quotes from neighbours who didn't like the eye-sore and it looks like this might be a challenge.

While I'm not a neighbour of this amateur, I did wonder if their community was aware of the wider community role that amateurs have to play in all manner of situations. I thought about the Boxing Day Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the Japanese Earthquake and subsequent Tsunami. In each of these disasters critical infrastructure such as power and communications was wiped out in the affected areas. In each of these areas local radio amateurs provided critical assistance for search and rescue and other life extending situations.

I wondered if the local community where this amateur lives was aware that amateurs can, have and will provide these critical services in case modern infrastructure ceases operation and I wondered if we as amateurs pro-actively go outside and talk to other members of the community and share some of this knowledge and information.

If we ignore these pushes for removal of so called eye-sores, there will come a time where the local amateur radio enthusiast is unable to assist their community because they simply have no infrastructure left to operate their station. One day the question will come: "Where are all the amateurs?"

As a foundation class licensee you have access to a whole raft of information, skills and if you have your kit, hardware, to communicate this to your local community. As a group, we amateurs have skills that might seem outdated, obsolete and out of touch with the Internet connected world today as seen from the perspective of an uninformed public. The reality is that this community of amateurs can and will step in to assist that community if and when the need arises.

In case you're wondering how what you do on air relates to any of what I'm talking about, making contacts, exchanging information, dealing with changing conditions, setting up your station, and doing the things you do as an amateur radio enthusiast, are immediately relevant to emergency communications. You may not be aware of it, but you are uniquely qualified to assist where communications are essential. Just because the mobile phone network works today, doesn't mean that it will continue to work across all situations.

I regularly take my kit on the road to setup my station, in fact, my station is designed to be portable for exactly this reason. Each time I setup my station I learn a little more about things to consider, spares to have on hand, cables I should remember to pack, etc. If you have the ability, I highly recommend that you take your station outside and set it up with limited infrastructure. I'm sure you'll learn something which will be of use at some time in the future.

I'm Onno, vk6flab