Most of us know that Craig Fugate is the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Well, as it turns out, so is Ted Okada, K4HNL, FEMA’s Chief Technology Officer. In this talk, which he gave at the TAPR Digital Communications Conference in September, he recounts some of his own history with amateur radio, discusses FEMA’s mission, and then engages in a little blue-sky thinking about how amateur radio might play a bigger role in emergency preparedness. At about the 23:20 mark, he says, “Is ham radio on the cusp of something big?”
Some of his blue-sky ideas that he feels amateur radio might play a part in include:
- Collecting flood data from a network of sensors.
- Collecting data from a network of infrasound sensors.
- Using the RaspberryPi as a low-power FM station to get information to refugees.
- Harvesting energy in places where commercial power is out.
For a long time, I’ve thought that amateur radio needs a group like TAPR devoted to researching emergency communications equipment and techniques. We always tout how amateur radio is essential in emergency situations, yet we do very little in the way of research. I don’t know what the future holds for FEMA, but with Fugate and Okada in charge, I think the time might be ripe to get something going. The question is whether or not anyone will step up to the challenge.
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