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Local radio team locked in on Haiti

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Dayton Amateur Radio Association member Dave Kalter, aka KB8OCP, has spent the last three nights monitoring ham radio traffic concerning the Haiti earthquake at the communication site on Bellefontaine Road in Huber Heights.

Staff photo by Jim Noelker Dayton Amateur Radio Association member Dave Kalter, aka KB8OCP, has spent the last three nights monitoring ham radio traffic concerning the Haiti earthquake at the communication site on Bellefontaine Road in Huber Heights.

By Terry Morris, Staff Writer Updated 9:32 PM Thursday, January 21, 2010

HUBER HEIGHTS — Members of the Dayton Amateur Radio Association have been all ears since the Jan. 12 earthquake beneath Haiti.

Working three- to four-hour volunteer shifts, 30 members have staffed their communication center on Bellefontaine Road 24 hours a day since, monitoring broadcasts in, out of and about Haiti.

“We’ve logged 450 man hours as of this morning,” member Dave Kalter of Kettering said Wednesday, Jan. 20. He had stayed at the building for three days and nights.

The club’s station (call letters W8BI) has been in intermittent contact with a Haitian missionary who calls in on a radio hooked up to a car battery. “He quickly ran out of fuel for his gasoline-powered generator,” member Jim Simpson said.

They heard from a group of HAM radio operators from the Dominican Republic who were forced to turn back after being confronted for their belongings when they tried to cross the border into Haiti last week.

“We know they’re OK and made it home safely. They’re planning to make another attempt to get in and establish radio when things stabilize,” Kalter said.

But so far, their broadcasts and those relayed by other stations into the hardest-hit areas have remained unanswered. On Wednesday, member Don Chelman was the person on duty, logging transmissions.

Shawna Collins of Kettering, who has taken her turns listening for Morse code and voices over the target frequencies, said silence won’t deter the club’s members, who work the same way during local emergencies such as the severe 2008 wind storm.

“You never know when that first person is going to get a radio and establish contact. When that happens, it will all be worth it,” she said.

“We’re also monitoring SATERN (the Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network) and the maritime mobile net, which includes all of the ships in the Caribbean area,” said Don DuBon of Kettering.

He said member Joe Brassard, whose fluency in the French language has helped with translations of the Creole spoken on Haiti, has tracked down a friend he went to school with who is working on the island.

“The time will come when we will be called on to pass health and welfare messages to and from loved ones here. Until then, we will be on the air and listening,” Simpson said. “We will stand down after phones and other forms of communications are restored.”

More information about DARA, which also hosts the annual Dayton Hamvention, is available at www.w8bi.org.

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