I wrote a piece the other day for a US news site called The Invisible Web.

It got rejected because I had difficulty explaining to an internet person doing the editing, why radio technology works when standard communication systems fail.

I used a fair number of links into ARES, Gulfnet and SATERN.
But I couldn’t give an audio example that readers could see and hear.
Amatuer radio operators work under a code of ethics, don’t accept payment for services, and while there are plenty of fun activities, ARES is constantly monitored.

I suggested to the editor I use prior examples, such as the Southeast Asian Tsunami, but that isn’t what readers want.
So the piece got scrapped.

When power, phones, cell phones are not working because of a catastrophic event, there are 700 thousand amateur radio operators in the US alone, ready to help. Governments all over the world understand this invisible web may be essential.
Communication is critical as those inside a disaster zone need to communicate to family and friends elsewhere. Communication breakdown leads to chaos. And it works the same way going ‘in.’
Look at the examples on the internet of family and friends trying to find loved ones that were in the path of Katrina.
The ‘old’ technology still works.

The word amateur doesn’t not mean unskilled or unprepared.
One of the major difficulties in any natural event is not only the breakdown of civilian communication, but the difficulties of national, state and local agencies to communicate with each other and with others.
Only well heeled agencies that can afford satellite phones use them, and they have to use them wisely any way they can, hooking into car batteries or whatever is available during the initial days of a disaster.

The Salvation Army has a network of 23 hundred radio volunteers in the US assisting in rescue and recovery right now.
They also assist in the field because it takes very little power and batteries and equipment.
Less urgent traffic is carried on lower frequencies after disasters, place to place, city to city, village to village, block to block, person to person.
Licenced radio operators can use Linux and special software on their computers, as well as their standard receivers and transmitters.

An example of how this invisible web works was reported in Christianity Today’s weblog (via The Washington Post)

About 11:15 a.m. Tuesday, SATERN volunteer Russ Fillinger was running the network when he got an emergency call from an operator near Tulsa. One member of a group of more than 15 people trapped on the roof of a building in downtown New Orleans had used a dying cell phone to call a family member in Tulsa, who relayed the S.O.S. to the local Red Cross. The charity contacted a ham operator in the area, who contacted Fillinger.

“I was just a relay kind of station. The message got transmitted on into the Coast Guard, who handled the rescue,” said Fillinger, 78, whose ham radio unit is based in his hilltop home in Portland, Oregon “By the evening, we got confirmation that the group had been rescued,” including an 81-year-old woman that Fillinger knows only as Helen.

Over the coming weeks as power and communication infrastructures are restored in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida volunteer amatuer radio operators will be working 24/7 on ARES, GulfNet and SATERN and other radio nets and as recovery eases into basic communication and rebuilding.

If you have a health and welfare request (12 thousand have been received as of today) the SATERN site is available.
If you’d like to donate to the Salvation Army to help maintain this world wide effort, or contribute to recovery efforts for Katrina, the international Salvation Army site is here.

You won’t hear much about this invisible web.
Radio operators aren’t looking for attention. They are there to get a job done because they are needed and because they are very good at what they do.

Texas radio operators have been assisting in the communication logistics in the transfer of refugees from New Orleans to The Superdome.
The Gulfnet has received 40 thousand calls for help.