Ham Radio during storms/Hurricanes

Boowow

Member
Feb 5, 2015
49
0
6
Hello All,

I bought a short wave radio for storms and couldn't pick up NOAA. It was mentioned I should have a HAM radio or even a Marine VHF radio.

I'm in Samana and want a way of tracking weather as our internet is pretty bad during storms.

Advise or other suggestions welcome
 

Matilda

RIP Lindsay
Sep 13, 2006
5,485
338
63
NOAA only tends to report on storms which are likely to affect the USA. When you have internet https://www.stormcarib.com/ is a good site about the Caribbean including the DR with reports from local residents and linked to NOAA maps. Also useful is the Dominican weather site http://onamet.gov.do/m/. When hurricanes are expected we ensure we have a battery operated radio, in case the electricity goes out, and there is full reporting on those, as well as Dominican television channels. In Spanish of course.

Matilda
 

Cdn_Gringo

Gold
Apr 29, 2014
8,670
1,132
113
Hurricanes are destroyers of things. In a full on hurricane a ham radio is probably not going to work all that well due to atmospheric interference and the fact that your antennae will be located several kilometers from where it was originally installed. Communications and electricity are usually the first things to go out in a storm and even a high quality radio will not be guaranteed to be of much use in such circumstances.

For near misses, if your house internet goes down, your cell service might not. I hear that people use twitter and other social media to sends screams of panic out into the ether. Some DR1 users activate a whatsapp chat group during these times. But in the end, If a Maria type storm passes over your neighborhood, you won't have the time or the inclination to be sitting in front of a radio flipping through frequencies. Ideally, you and your radio should be no where near each other, as you should be sipping a cocktail from a safe location well outside the path of the storm. Your access to the information you need to be safe is always available in the days leading up to a big storm. After it arrives knowing minute to minute that you should have left is not particularly cathartic.

Spending a night or two elsewhere is always a more prudent option than rolling the dice and then flipping through the dial to see if you rolled snake-eyes.
 

chico bill

Dogs Better than People
May 6, 2016
12,543
6,307
113
Cell service usually goes in a hurricane. If the tower survives usually the antennas become disconnected from coax cables or the microwave which carries backhaul back through the carriers switch are spun off alignment even if they stay on the tower. Just look at those 4' to 8' MW dishes - they catch a boat load of wind.
Ask Puerto Rico. Few cell sites survived last hurricane.