HAM help to a Sailor

In 1982-83 I was working in the Maldives in the middle of the Indian Ocean, for the telepone company. I had set up an Amateur Radio station (8Q7BT) and had two HF rigs with one 3-el tribander and a longwire, plus VHF and UHF, with az/el rotators for Oscar satellite working.

One day whilst at work, I received a frantic phone call from a Ship to Shore radio station in Hong Kong, which was also operated by the same company I work for. They were looking for the contact details of the Maldives Ship-Shore HF radio station. I informed that no such thing existed.

The Hong Kong Maritime radio station proceeded to tell me about their dilemma: A freighter in rough seas off the coast of Yemen had put out a distress call. A sailor had slipped on a ladder, put a leg between the rungs, and then fell backwards down the ladder. He was suffering severe compound fractures of all three major bones in his right leg. The ship was more than 10 hours from any port, let alone any port with emergency medical facilities.

The Hong Kong maritime station had been called by the authorities in the Gulf area, who had initially picked up the distress call. But the skip distances meant that the Gulf stations were losing contact with the vessel. Hong Kong were trying to maintain contact with the vessel too, but losing the signal on all maritime frequencies.

I advised Hong Kong of my own HF station capabilities. They asked me to help. I set off from the office, travelling home on a bicycle. (Male (pronounced "mah-lay"), the capital island of the Maldives, had very few cars, so I made the journey at high speed on my trusty bicycle. Once at home, I called Hong Kong by phone, and started tuning around the Maritime frequency they had been listening on. The original plan was to have the ship change frequency to an amateur band. However, I made a call to the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications and requested permission to operate outside my permitted bands, in the Maritime frequencies. Permission was granted, and I responded to the ship. Generally good signals in both directions, but with quite deep fading from time to time. I acted as a relay between medical staff in Hong Kong and the ship.

The situation was made more difficult because the crew of the ship all spoke Portugese, and Farsi, with a tiny smattering of English. I speak English, French, German, and a small amount of Turkish.

Minutes later, I was joined at my home by a truckload of soldiers from the Maldives National Security Service. And seconds later, joined by the Minister of Posts and Telecoms himself, and the Chief Technical officer from the United Nations Development Programme office. (Hey, it's a small island: Word gets around fast!).

One of the soldiers was a good translator from Farsi to English, and so we continued to relay messages from medical staff in Hong Kong to the ship.

More than an hour later, the radio conditions between my station and the ship took a dive. We tried to find a better frequency, without success. None of the other ship-shore stations could hear the ship either.

Out of desperation, I began to think of other avenues, and decided to have my staff at the office try to contact the US Military at Diego Garcia by using Telex. We got through, and explained the predicament. They were initially very annoyed that we'd called them. Showed no interest in assisting. They quoted such things as national security, and safety of their military staff. They were unwilling to disclose the location of their ships or other resources. However, in the end, I dictated to them the last known position and heading of the vessel, and the latest medical report on the condition of the crewmember, and asked them to relay it to their Navy and/or Coastguard operations.

HF conditions to the ship deteriorated further. The ship continued to steam at maximum speed towards the nearest port.

Everyone at my house was depressed. The medical opinion was that, given the lack of proper facilities, and the condition of the leg, and the failed attempts to stop the haemorrhage, the sailor would not survive the night on the ship. We collected contact details for the team involved in the relay, and then disbanded. I kept a listening watch on HF for the ship.

At midnight (5 hours after the relay effort was disbanded) the station watchkeeper at my office called me at home to advise that he'd received a 1-line telex from what appeared to be the Pentagon, stating "with respect to the incident yesterday evening, the subject has been airlifted from the vessel".

A further 24 hours later, another inocuous 1-line telex message arrived saying "subject is expected to fully recover. Amputation of the leg was performed at sea. "No further communications from Diego Garcia or the Ship-Shore stations.

All I can say is, thank goodness I'd done the "general coverage TX' modification to the Icom 720A.Iain , G4JMM/6Y5 Kingston, Jamaica.

Story from G4JMM/6Y5

When I was 11 years old (in early 1972), I walked into the garage at home, and found that my dad, (who had no interest in ham radio or electronics), was dismantling an old radio with tubes in it. (EF80, ECH81 and the like). He was just collecting the nuts, bolts and aluminium (that's how they spell it in UK!). I started asking him about how radio worked, and he told me what he knew, (not much!).

The next birthday I was given an electronics experiment kit. The next Christmas I found an electronics toolkit under the tree.

All our neighbours got to hear about my interest in radio & electronics, and one of them brought round an old radio covering "Long Wave and Medium Wave", hoping that I could repair it. It wasn't a difficult repair: The waxed string from the tuning knob to the variable capacitor and to the scale pointer had broken. Not even anything to do with electronics or radio, really. But then the fun started:...

I replaced the string, worked out how many turns to put round the capstan, and how tight the spring should be. Then, not having a signal generator, I tried to calibrate the sliding pointer against known stations on Medium Wave. Starting off at the high frequency end of medium wave, I tuned in the first station I found, and was amazed to hear the person talking about street names which I recognised in our neighbourhood. That was strange: We didn't have a broadcast station covering our town.

I called my father, he made a phone call or two, and came back with the answer that this was local Radio Amateurs talking to each other on "Top Band". I showed some interest, and a week later, I received a copy of the RSGB Radio Communication Handbook through the mail, plus a contact name for the local Amateur Radio club.

The rest is history, as they say... I guess that answers 'how', not 'why', but thought you might be interested.

It turns out that the knowledge gained through Amateur Radio helped me immensely. I ended up taking up telecommunications as a profession, and am still in the same business. Retrospectively, that is probably the answer to 'why'.

The hobby has always been fascinating to me. One of my most memorable moments was helping to save the life of a critically injured sailor at sea.

- Iain, G4JMM/6Y5 (Kingston, Jamaica)