Aftermath from Sandy.

I was at work nearing the end of my tour during Sandy. A few days later I went home and fired up the rig and pretty much left it on 24/7.

I understand the Air Force was schlepping ham civilian volunteers into PR to establish communications early on. I recall reading one of them was a plumber from Wisconsin who showed up at Dover on his own nickel.

From what I gathered many of the hams that went to PR fanned out upon arrival and set up little ad hoc message centers. The news of their arrival was spread by word of mouth.

Over the next couple of weeks I got to forward 5 messages to people Stateside that had loved ones in PR.

The breakdown was 3 direct messages from PR, a relay from a French ham and another relay from a Cuban ham. 

It was pretty straightforward passing on the messages to four of the recipients. I just spilled the beans and explained who I was and that it was illegal to compensate me. I got to talk to four grateful people...and one idiot.

The idiot was a woman that demanded to speak with her daughter. I explained that that couldn't happen because I was in Pennsylvania and she was in PR. She then told me she wanted to speak with my boss.

"I'm the owner of this station," I replied. "It's an amateur radio station."

"I don't know what kind of radio station that is but I want to speak with my daughter," she practically screeched.

I heard an angry male voice snap, "You f***ing idiot! Give me the damned phone!" A second later a calm male voice asked me if I knew anything about their daughter. I repeated the message. She was safe and was being taken care of and would call them when she could. I added that it was probably going to take a while.

"Did you actually talk to my daughter?" he asked, calmly.

I told him I hadn't. The message had been relayed to me by a Cuban ham.

"Cuba?" he asked increduliously.

"Yes, Sir. Cuba. Cuban hams are the best in the Caribbean. You can take his word to the bank," I said. 

He asked how the system works.

I explained that the governing body of American ham radio is the American Radio Relay League and that back in the day when word couldn't be passed directly between stations that messages were relayed by other stations. "Propagation between my area and PR was bad so we reverted back to Old School.  The PR station relayed the word to Cuba and the Cuban relayed word to me. Sandy clouted Cuba pretty good so it's likely the Cuban was sitting in a pile of rubble as he was busy helping others out." 

He sounded truly grateful and when he offered to reward me I told him not to because it's illegal to do so. I did say that if he wanted to he could look up the amateur radio club nearest him and make a donation.

For the record, a Frenchman forwarded me a message also. The signal was weak and he asked me if the email address on my QRZ page was valid. It was. So he emailed me a message he got from PR which I also forwarded.  

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY