HAM Radio plays a vital role during the disaster calamities as emergency communication when the other wire communications fail to work. Likewise, one of the most drastic incident that happened in India was the Amphan Cyclone, which affected many people lives and their living areas of states such as Odisha, West Bengal etc.,. It also affected countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan. At this situation, Amateur Radio operators came forward and saved many lives during the cyclone. The operators worked with the Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) in Balasore district of Odisha and along with the group of Amateur Radio Society of Odisha (ARSO) members to safeguard the people from the cyclone.

The Very High Frequency (VHF) bandwidth made difficult for the operators to communicate with the headquarters of OSDMA, from Balasore to Bhubaneswar.Hence, the operators decided to use the High Frequency bandwidth or Short Wave to establish a parallel mode of communication in case of any extreme need. Then the operators were enable to communicate with the headquarters of the Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA) in Bhubhaneshwar and the ARSO members monitored the emergency communication. The conventional communication survived the people from the effect of Amphan in Balasore.

In West Bengal the HAM Radio Operators saved many people lives affected by the cyclone. They operated the 37 VHF HAM Radio stations with the help of 42 volunteers who were present in different districts of that state. The volunteers communicated the information about the people in the affected places to the administration where they sent the team of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) to save the people. Through this the people were sent to the safer zone.

A person named Ramakrishna Kar,who lives in Barasat for his work communicated with his family in Sagar Island with the help of Amateur Radio Operators at the West Bengal Radio Club. Dibas Mondol, an HAM Radio operator found the landscape of the Kar’s house and he captured the video message and transmitted it through the Small Scan Television(SSTV) method. It is a kind of a way of sending a video over voice bandwidth, where the video was transferred through a beacon and was sent to HAM. Through SSTV software the frequency was decoded and finally the video was downloaded.


Like this the HAM Radio operators saved many lives around the world and always there to save the people’s life. The amateur’s stood out because of their communication and the technical abilities and only HAM’s could make communication to reach the areas of operation.

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