Here in Cumberland just east of Ottawa, through the Cumberland Emergency Radio Group, communications support was set up early and has been running around the clock. This has been the centre of all Amateur Radio and even official civil and military emergency comms in the Capital Region. The Red Cross, Cumberland Mayor Brian Coburn, Cumberland Fire Chief Gordon Mills, Regional Police, Hydro and even high-ranking military COs, are absolutely raving about the role hams have played.

There is absolutely no way that many emergency and support activities could have taken place without the Amateur Radio infrastructure of repeaters, trained operators, many volunteers, their equipment, and associated HF links and nets etc.

The Amateur Radio comms room became the hub of activity with fire, police, hydro and military officials constantly running in with messages that needed to be relayed to the growing official and volunteer infrastructure "on the ground."

We were even controlling and dispatching military patrol, pump, fuel and generator units...repeaters were absolutely necessary...HF or direct VHF/UHF would not have cut it.

I was out Saturday night on patrol in Clarence Township east of Rockland with a number of other volunteer Amateurs . We were part of the military briefing and army staff were assigned to our vehicles for door-to-door H&W and safety checks...all comms going through Amateur repeaters and back to the military CP.

We had media crawling all over us all weekend and today - print reporters plus local CBC TV and CTV and French CBC TV.

There has been quite good exposure of the Amateur Radio involvement in the Capital Region but I'm not sure how much of it, if any, was fed to the networks. Pat Doherty says Daniel has been on the front lines in Montreal so hopefully there will be some media exposure there also...

The message in all this...if Industry Canada feels less committed to the Amateur Service and our spectrum, here is a golden, made-for-the-purpose example of how hams spring into action and provide immediate comms....we don't just talk about how great we are in emergencies. We actually do it...it works..and soon everyone is coming to us because we have working comms and are able to fan out, deploy, and set up on short notice in hard-pressed areas.

I know personally that hundreds of people in this immediate area alone would have been freezing in the dark with flooded basements and perhaps dead from carbon monoxide poisoning if it had not been for the very real, direct, immediate, effective and practical contribution of Amateur Radio.

We should now have so much support that no one will dare mess with Amateur Radio or the spectrum. We should be able to come out of this shining, golden and untouchable so that any minion or public servant who wants to monkey with or neglect the Amateur Service would have a lot of explaining to do and fear for his job.

73, Rob
Robin Ludlow, VE3YE, Editor,
The Canadian Amateur