Submitted by Ralph Brandt K3HQI, ARRL EPA Affiliated Club Coordinator
On July 30th in Sinking Springs PA at 13:15, we were looking for a 13 year old autistic boy who was missing from his home. “We” means firefighters, police, citizen volunteers and 5 Search Teams, each with dozens of members. Follow-up news reports number the volunteers in the hundreds.
There were about forty Amateur Radio operators involved in this search and rescue effort. They were the leads for the volunteer search teams – they are searchers and communicators. A repeater in the MIDSAR Trailer allowed us to have 100% communications with these teams. SAR teams included Middle Creek SAR, PA Canine SAR, Chester Co. SAR , Special Unit 66, and several others. Nearly all members of the mentioned teams are hams.
We started the operation about 1300 and he was located about 1900, safe. Ham radio played a significant part in this. I handled the COMMS for about 3 ½ hours and then was (thankfully) relieved by AC3CM (Yvonne).
Of the roughly 40 ham operators I found that many of them knew me. About 25 of them were students in my Tech classes including ones from the PACSAR and Chester Teams. It gives a good feeling when it works.