the amateur radio experiences of Steven Hicks
North Little Rock, Arkansas - grid square EM34vt

There are so many aspects to amateur radio.  I must focus on what I focus on.  I am active in the central Arkansas area on the 2-meter and 70cm bands.  Around here, we simply refer to the 70cm band as "440" or "UHF".  I belong to an amateur radio club that emphasizes the 440 band, the Central Arkansas UHF Group.  We have a very nice website here.

I have a general class license and I am new to the HF bands.  As soon as I passed my general class exam in March of 2005, I bought my first HF rig, a Yaesu FT-840, and jumped right in.  I got my general class ticket just in time, because, on August 30th, 2005, I was called upon to travel to south Mississippi and provide emergency communications in the first few days following Hurricane Katrina.  I already had an interest in emergency communications but serving eight days in Katrina-devastated Jones County Mississippi, made me keenly aware that hams can and do provide an essential public service in the time of greatest need.  Hams are mostly self-contained.  We can communicate across the nation or around the world with power from an ordinary car battery.

The photo was taken on board our tractor-trailer rig while we were stationed in Laurel, Mississippi helping to feed thousands of victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Our “caravan” of two tractor-trailer rigs, followed by a dozen personal vehicles, was escorted into the town of Laurel by sheriff’s deputies running their blue lights and sirens.

During the first 3-4 days, there was almost no electricity and no phone service or cell service.  We had water but we were under a boil order until the last day there, Sept 7th.  Our rig carries its own water purification system and its own 100kW diesel generator.  Both ran around the clock for days.

We were parked at the Jones County Fairgrounds in Laurel and were surrounded by downed trees and power lines and damaged buildings.  Laurel and Hattiesburg suffered 130mph winds as the hurricane moved north from the Gulf Coast.  The Red Cross also moved in and set up a large station next to our rig after we removed fallen trees.  A Red Cross Shelter, housing almost 1000 evacuees, was next door in a miraculously undamaged rodeo arena.

My job was amateur radio communications and it proved to be an essential means—and often the sole means—of communication for the Red Cross, disaster relief volunteers, medical personnel, law enforcement and various state and county emergency operations centers (EOCs).

OK, so what else interests me, insofar as ham radio is concerned?

Like I said, I'm new to HF but I take part in as many HF nets as I possibly can.  I'm trying to learn more about the National Traffic System (NTS).  For you non-hams, NTS is a system that has been used by amateur radio operators for decades to pass traffic (messages) from one station to another around the world.  It is slow and cumbersome but it does get the message through.  It's very structured and uses a time tested format, developed during the early days of the telegraph.  We now refer to it as an ARRL Radiogram.  An example is posted here.