Ham radio operator reaches
out to connect a community

A voice across
the waves
John Driscoll
THE TIMES-STANDARD

 
 

ARCATA, Ca. — Imagine bobbing up and down on 10-foot swells in a 40-foot sailboat somewhere between here and Tahiti. You are all that exists in the world at that moment, at least so it seems. Being that alone is more than just psychological isolation. If you’ve cut yourself or are having problems with your boat, the loneliness or fatigue can grow to dangerous proportions.    Who can help you?    It may be one man, a link in a chain of ham radio operators around the globe, who has kept track of you and can patch a doctor, a relative or another sailor through to you.    It may be Robert Reed.    Part of the Pacific Seafarer’s network, Reed (ham callsign N6HGG) has on occasion been part of coordinated efforts to rescue or assist blue-water cruisers who are in trouble, or whose relatives are worried about them. He’s a ham radio operator that uses an array of recycled wire hung on redwood trees to reach out to between 20 to 35 boats sailing to various ports around the world.    “I’ve got the whole world pretty much covered,” Reed said while looking up at the wires, which he hung on redwoods at his West End Road house by using a fishing pole, line and a 4-ounce sinker to pull them up.    Indoors, his 100-watt transceiver and 700-watt amplifier are arranged in a bank with a computer where Reed can record and monitor boats’positions, relay e-mail, and patch telephone calls to or from boats.    With this setup, Reed was able to connect 77-year-old David Clarke —the oldest man to sail single-handedly around the world — with friends and family on the last leg of his trip in 2001.    Typically, his task is more routine. At least two nights a week, at 3:25 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time, 7:25 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, he takes roll call, which is much like it sounds.    At this time of year sailors who have spent the past few months getting ready for long trips are leaving Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, en route to the Marquesas in the South Pacific. Reed and several others of the Pacific Seafarer’s Network nightly take the boats’ positions and the weather conditions they’re experiencing. He also asks if there are incoming or outgoing messages for those boats and accommodates them if there are.    It is something of an ethereal gathering place for sailors and their relatives. Two boats that can’t talk to each other because they’re too close may want to communicate or meet somewhere. Because radio waves bounce off the ionosphere, they often jump over positions that are close together.    Reed can warn sailors of approaching storms or assure a becalmed boat that wind is forthcoming.     A sailor named Peter on board the yacht Cool Change between Honolulu and Papeete in Tahiti on Thursday reported such a becalming.     “It’s just a horrible day,” he said, his voice echoing, possibly because of a solar flare disruption of the radio waves.    Reed checked the wind speed and direction along Peter’s course and advised him he might get a decent breeze soon, much to Peter’s relief.    In the height of the season, there are about 30 boats to keep track of, and the roll call can take nearly two hours. This relatively simple task can become a heroic undertaking.     Calm in the storm    One night in May 1999 a mayday call was sent out from a boat sailing in an around-the-world race. That boat had received a distress call from another racing boat named Lucifero seven hours ahead which had struck something and were taking on water.    The first boat then lost contact with the Lucifero.    A ham operator in Hawaii relayed the information to the U.S. Coast Guard, which forwarded the call to the U.S. Air Force. The Air Force had picked up the troubled Lucifero’s emergency beacon. Reed relayed information to the boat that had reported the mayday.    Reed and others worked to keep the frequency clear of other radio traffic.The Air Force notified New Zealand Maritime Communications, which informed the New Zealand Air Force of the problem. The New Zealand Air Force sent a plane, a P3 Orion, to find the distressed sailors

of the Lucifero who were now in a life raft. The P3 was able to guide the reporting sailboat to the raft, whose occupants were then rescued.    Ham operators also played an enormous role in the 1994 Queen’s Birthday storm that struck a fleet of yachts between New Zealand and Tonga to the north, a particularly treacherous area. Accounts of the storm are terrifying: 100-mile-per-hour winds, up to 100-foot waves, boats capsized, masts sheered, sailors bloodied. But perhaps the most incredible elements of the four-day storm were the rescue efforts that saved 21 people.    Ham radio operators were a crucial link to life for many of the 60 yachts caught in the cyclone’s path. They relayed positions to rescue craft, reassured sailors’ relatives and took advice from other mariners on how they might survive the onslaught. The  owner of a yacht behaving poorly in the giant seas asked one ham operator to relay advice from anyone who had experience sailing a similar boat — and got it, greatly improving his chances of riding out the storm.    The radio community    Reed grew up in Newport Beach amidst the masts, rigging and hulls of yachts. He sailed from the time he was age 10 to 21, mostly short distances. He became interested in aviation after that and turned away from sailing.    When he was 28 he was licensed as a ham radio operator. The Amateur Radio Service, as it is otherwise called, the ham band is orderly and much unlike the unregulated and chaotic Citizens Band, or CB.    Reed became fascinated listening to sailors cruising the world’s oceans. “It was a passive thing until about four years ago,” Reed said. Around then, he bought the equipment needed to relay phone messages. At the same time, a delivery captain — a person who sails boats to ports as a service — started coming up on a frequency every night. Reed eventually asked the captain if he wanted a phone patch. It wasn’t long before he was doing it for other sailors.    “From then on I just got hooked,” Reed said. He soon became involved in the Pacific Seafarer’s Network and began doing roll call.    The 49-year-old diesel generator technician lives with his wife Patrice and his teen-age son Cameron and daughter Allison.  Having active teen-agers means he can’t always be there to run the roll call, in which case someone else on the network takes over. One operator is a tax specialist, and during tax season, it’s Reed who covers additional days.    These ham operators do a lot more than keep tabs on boats. They provide emergency communications, and act as liaisons between boats and search-and rescue authorities. They track non-ham-equipped vessels by relaying through other ham equipped boats at sea. They provide weather information and take weather information from boats and send it to weather forecasters, an invaluable tool.    One of the more fascinating roles is that of medical liaison. Several doctors are on call to give advice to wounded or sick sailors via the network.    On Thursday night, one sailor informed Reed during roll call that he had altered course in the mid-Pacific and were headed to Long Beach to find a doctor for his partner, who was having medical problems. They were 1,200 miles — at least 10 days away — from that port.     Reed told the sailor that he could patch a doctor through if needed, though the sailor declined. Reed and others are now monitoring the boat closely, keeping tabs on the sailor who may get fatigued if he has to sail that far single-handedly. Others on the network have begun to write in and give advice on alternate ports and routes the boat might consider.    The people that make up the network are a community in the ether. Friendships develop over radio waves. It happens through coordination that can seem like magic, with each operator and sailor watching everyone else’s backs.    At the end of a list of functions the network performs is its most philosophical, but also its most relevant: To be ambassadors of good will to all members of the public at large and crews of vessels at sea.    To learn more about the Pacific Seafarer’s Network look on the web at www.tidepool.com/~psn .

 
 

John Driscoll covers natural resources/industry. He can be reached at 707 441-0504 or jdriscoll@times-standard.com