Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
17 Amateur Radio Support for
Hospitals
MARINA ZUETELL
Executive Summary
Hospitals and the healthcare system are depen-
dent upon reliable and redundant communication
systems. When these systems fail, as they often do
during a disaster or other event that puts an over-
load on normal ways of conducting business, there
needs to be an ultimate, reliable fall-back solu-
tion. Volunteer communications experts, known as
Amateur Radio operators can provide communica-
tions and hold things together until the commercial
phones and radio systems can recover.
their hobby to provide backup and emergency
communications during disaster situations, and
when normal communications fail. They like to
communicate, and they volunteer their skills and
interest by helping the agencies and organizations
who rely on communications to fill the gap when
things go wrong. Hurricanes, floods, earthquakes,
tsunamis, and other geological events can cause
complete or partial failure of the normal phone,
cell phone, and commercial radio systems. So
do man-made events such as the collapse of the
World Trade Center towers or a large terrorism or
bioterrorism event, where regular communication
systems are overloaded or compromised.
There are two commonly known groups who
provide these emergency communications. One of
these is sponsored by the ARRL (Amateur Radio
Relay League) [2]—the national organization for
amateur radio; and the other is sponsored by the
federal and local governments, an offshoot of
the old Civil Defense system. Different operating
requirements and restrictions apply to each.
17.1 What is Amateur Radio?
Amateur Radio is a technical hobby that teaches
people how to use a two-way radio to communi-
cate. Many people use the hobby to acquire new
friends, contest, talk to the space shuttle, bounce
signals off the moon, and experiment with radio
and other technical aspects of the hobby. The
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has
granted the Amateur Radio Service access to a
wide variety of the radio spectrum, with the stipula-
tion that it be used to develop new radio technolo-
gies and provide emergency communications [1].
The term “Amateur” denotes that the operators
are unpaid volunteers, not that they are unprofes-
sional or unskilled. They are also called “hams,”
although the derivation of that
•
Amateur Radio Emergency Service
(
ARES
®)—
Public service communications have been a
traditional responsibility of the Amateur Radio
Service since 1913. In those early days, such
disaster work was spontaneous and without
previous organization of any kind. In today's
Amateur Radio, disaster work is a highly organ-
ized and worthwhile part of day-to-day oper-
ation, implemented principally by the ARES
and the National Traffic System (NTS), both
sponsored by ARRL [2].
term is lost
to
history.
There is one aspect of the hobby that serves
a more serious mission—that of Emergency
Communications. Amateur
radio operators use
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