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From The Dallas Morning News:
Among the innumerable heroes to emerge from this week's tragedies is a
device that many have loved to hate: the cellular phone.
Phones, two-way pagers and other wireless devices have been credited with
providing invaluable information about the hijackers, helping rescue efforts,
reassuring loved ones and giving people the opportunity to hear their spouses'
last words.
Our hats are off to all the Amateur Radio Operators who volunteered their
services and equipment; fire, police and emergency radio dispatchers who helped
bring some order out of chaos; broadcast and telecommunications engineers who
helped restore communications to a desperate city; media personnel who
volunteered time and services; and the many companies who donated communications
equipment and services. We dedicate this issue to the victims who were able to
reach family, friends, or just friendly strangers by means of radio waves in the
last moments of their lives, most especially to those on United Flight 93 who
learned the true nature of their hijacking and decided to do something about it.
The transmitters of nine of New York's analog television stations, five
DTV stations, four FM radio stations, and many communications channels were all
located atop the World Trade Center (WTC), and many video fiber paths were
located below it. When the north tower went down, so did most off-air New York
TV. Six transmitter engineers, two of whom were hams, are presumed to have lost
their lives in the collapse. "The
broadcast community is in absolute shock," said Hudson Division Vice
Director Steve Mendelsohn, W2ML, who works for ABC News. "We all knew
transmitter engineers, we all knew people who worked up in those towers near
those big television transmitters, and they're gone."
When the WTC was bombed eight years ago was the only station able to
switch to an auxiliary, full-power transmitter on the Empire State Building (ESB).
The same was true again: WCBS was the only WTC station able to continue
operating at full power. Most area cable-TV systems continued to broadcast based
on direct audio/video feeds and a microwave interconnection system, though the
network programming was not necessarily out of New York. There were also
broadcast arrangements with PBS, Home Shopping, and educational channels.
ABC and CBS are looking to rebuild primary sites in Manhattan. NBC moved
to a site in Alpine, New Jersey, where it will probably remain. Interestingly,
this site " which looks like a giant power pylon," according to Mark
Schubin, OpenDTV, "was the site of the world's first FM broadcast and was a
beloved spot of its creator, Major Edwin Armstrong." One source said that NBC had its Burbank, California, station dismantle the emergency antenna
off Mount Wilson and ship it to NYC, but it turned out to be too heavy to mount
on the Alpine tower.
Jay Ballard commented that "the loss of the NY stations has created
some DX opportunities for those living in Long Island. Both Channel 9 in DC and
WJZ in Baltimore were seen."
Here are a few of the tremendous efforts made by telecommunications
companies to help in the recovery effort:
*
A wireless emergency response team combining technicians from prominent
telecommunications firms was put together to locate possible survivors of the
attack on the World Trade Center. The technicians detected some 50 cell phones
present under the rubble, but no active transmissions. It did clear some missing
persons reports when calls were determined to have been made from outside the
area.
*
Verizon deployed portable cell sites in Manhattan and New Jersey, at the
Pentagon, and in Shanksville, PA. They also made 5,000 phones available for
emergency officials.
*
BellSouth reported three times and AT&T reported twice the normal
volume of long-distance calls. Cingular Wireless reported attempts to make a
call increased a thousand percent in New York. Major telecommunications carriers
said that most interruptions in service were caused not by physical damage but
by network overloads caused by extraordinary numbers of people trying to make
calls at once.
*
Email quickly became the only way to get in touch reliably; EarthLink
president Michael McQuarry said, "A lot of people don't realize that the
Internet was originally created to manage communication in such an instance of
attack as this.'' He said it began as an U.S. army project to allow computers to
communicate in the event of a national disaster.
*
Motorola delivered around 9,500 portable radios, 120 base stations, 700
Iridium satellite telephones, and 10,000 IDEN multifunction phones to various
federal, state and local government agencies. Motorola also sent three
trailer-mounted 900 MHz and 800 MHz radio systems to New York City, plus an 800
MHz, 15-channel communications system to serve as back-up for the Empire State
Building communications site, now that it has become the primary system.
Ham radio operators responded to the New York emergency by staffing more
than 30 Red Cross shelters and other sites. Local clubs and repeater groups
volunteered gear, frequencies and operators.
The emergency area is now contained to Manhattan. However, it could be
months before hams are no longer needed. Hams have been operating in two shifts
daily with 30 to 50 operators needed for each shift. To see whether volunteers
are still needed, check into the Division web site and the NLI page at http://www.arrlhudson/nli
At the scene of the Pentagon attack near Washington, DC, a crew of about
two dozen amateurs staffed six Amateur Radio stations and provided logistical
support between the Salvation Army's relief and recovery effort on site and the
agency's Arlington headquarters.
At the Somerset County western Pennsylvania crash site, Kevin Custer,
W3KKC, arranged preliminary repeater communication into and out of the crash
site to help the Red Cross, Salvation Army, Pennsylvania State Police, the FBI
and other state and federal agencies on the scene.
The ARRL reminds hams to be aware of what they say on the air, as there
are a lot of people listening in on scanners as well as on amateur radios. Hams
should self-monitor what they say on air and not allow racist anti-Moslem
rhetoric. "That's not the American way.
That's not ham radio!"
According to a report from DEBKA Intelligence Files, anti-American
terrorists may be in possession of all or part of the codes used by the Secret
Service, Drug Enforcement Administration, the National Reconnaissance Office,
Air Force Intelligence, Army Intelligence, Naval Intelligence, Marine Corps
Intelligence and the intelligence offices of the State Department and Department
of Energy.
After two hijacked planes struck the twin towers of the World Trade
Center in New York, the U.S. Secret Service reportedly received a message using
that day's White House code, saying "Air Force One is next."
Immediately, Vice President Dick Cheney was hustled down to the president's
emergency operations center, a bunker built to withstand a nuclear blast.
Holding the White House code and a whole set of top-secret signals would
have made it possible for a hostile force to pinpoint the exact position of Air
Force One, its destination and its classified procedures. In fact, they could
also pick up and decipher the presidential plane's incoming and outgoing
transmissions.
The implications shocked everyone in the president's emergency operations
center: Is there a mole, or more than one enemy spy in the White House, the
Secret Service, the FBI, the CIA or the Federal Aviation Administration? The
DEBKA report suggests the trail may go as far as back as 1993, when Aldrich Ames
leaked US secret codes to someone at the United Nations in New York. From there
the codes went to Africa where America was participating in a UN police action
in Somalia. U.S. involvement there ended not long after disastrous ambush on US
troops by soldiers trained by bin Laden. There is evidence to suggest that bin
Laden's aides acquired more than just US secret codes for the Mogadishu
operation.
In the wake of these and other discoveries, said the report, agency
experts are not only changing codes one-by-one, but also replacing procedures
and methods of encryption.
Ana Belen Montes, a 44-year-old senior analyst with the Defense
Intelligence Agency, was arrested Sept 21 by the FBI and charged with providing
U.S. national secrets to Cuba. Montes was the senior analyst responsible for
matters pertaining to Cuba.
Montes had been under surveillance since May, when a court-authorized
covert search of her apartment turned up a portable computer whose contents
included, among other things, instructions on how to erase material from the
computer, tips for radio reception, and references to "the numbers that you
receive via radio." A Sony shortwave radio was also found.
The complaint said that the FBI identified text consisting of 150 sets of
numerical groups. "The text begins, '30107 24624,' and continues until 150
such groups are listed. The FBI has determined that the precise same numbers, in
the precise same order, were broadcast on February 6, 1999, at AM frequency 7887
kHz, by a woman speaking Spanish, who introduced the broadcast with the words 'Atención!
Atención!' ''
Radio
hobbyist Chris Smolinski says, "For
those who are interested a quick check of WUN's huge frequency database, the
text file on the older WUN CD (1995-1999) shows three entries for the freq (all
as the "Atencion Stn".) And a quick search on http://www.wunclub.com
has a single entry for 7887.0 from 2000."
Members of the Cuban-American community speculated that FBI agents moved
in to arrest Montes to stop leaks to Cuba as U.S. forces mount a war on the
Osama bin Laden network.
ARRL Monitoring System Administrator Brennan Price, N4QX, suggests that unidentified transmissions of code groups should be directly reported to federal authorities. "The Monitoring System best documents and pursues regular, persistent intrusions to the Amateur Radio Service," he said. "Most code group transmissions are neither regular nor persistent." Price has received increased reports of such transmissions in the past week, likely due to increased alertness on the part of listeners in the wake of Tuesday's terrorist attacks.
FCC Special Counsel for Amateur Radio Enforcement Riley Hollingsworth invites reports of suspicious radio transmissions via e-mail to fccham@fcc.gov. Those submitting such reports should include their location plus the date, time, and frequency of the transmission monitored.
MT suggests those most likely to know the difference between regular code transmissions and those which are unusual are shortwave utility monitors like the WUN club who have already been doing this for years. But we unite with the principle of citizens doing their part to listen and report. Please turn to page 86 for a special proposal on how you might help!
Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) requested that broadcast stations suspend their
routine weekly and monthly tests of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) in order to
avoid potential public confusion or fear. The tests were expected to resume as
required by the FCC after October 2.
Although the FCC issued no emergency declarations nor other special
instructions to the Amateur Radio community as a consequence of the September 11
terrorist attacks, the
FCC apparently intends to put teeth into its infrequent emergency declarations.
The Commission has written a Springfield, Missouri, ham regarding alleged
interference to an emergency net after the FCC declared a general communications
emergency on June 10.
Because of severe flooding in Texas and Louisiana, the FCC had declared
3.873 and 7.285 MHz -- plus or minus 3 kHz -- off limits to all but flood
emergency traffic. Agents say they monitored William C. Dennison, K0VCD,
operating in the vicinity of -- and causing interference to -- an emergency net.
At one point, the FCC said, Dennison moved onto the net's frequency to challenge
the net control station.
Dennison's alleged action "reflects an alarming failure in
understanding what Amateur Radio was established for and the basis for its
allocation of broad frequencies and privileges," Riley Hollingsworth said.
"Communications" is compiled by editor
Rachel Baughn KE4OPD (mteditor@grove-ent.com) from newsclippings and reports
submitted by our readers. Thanks to this month's reporters: Anonymous,
Albany, NY; Norman Hill, Arlington, VA; Doug Robertson, Oxnard, CA; Alan
Stoddart, Brooklyn, NY; Robert Thomas, Bridgeport, CT; Jeff Weinberg, Highlands
Ranch, CO; Susan Wilden, Noblesville, IN; Via email: ARRL; Mark Ansel; Ed
Cummings; Robert Felton; Alan Henney; Bob Kozlarek; Fred Moore; Ed Muro; Matthew
Sadler; Mark Schubin, OpenDTV; John Stanko; Ron Tull; Larry Van Horn; Robert
Wyman; Dave Zantow