Modern networks depend on a fragile chain — towers, cables, electricity, servers. A cyclone or an earthquake can break every link in seconds. A ham operator with a radio, a battery and an antenna can still reach across a continent. When officials could not locate survivors or coordinate aid, our nets carried the names, the needs and the numbers. That is the quiet promise of amateur radio: someone is always listening.
In 2004 we travelled to the Andaman Islands for a DX-pedition as VU4RBI / VU4APR — the first amateur radio operation from the islands in seventeen years. We had no idea what was coming.
When the tsunami struck on 26 December, the earth began to shake violently. I woke everyone in our building and told them to run downstairs at once. After ten or fifteen minutes, as the first tremors settled, I went back upstairs and switched on my radio. On 14.200 MHz I made the first transmission alerting the world.
“Something terrible has happened in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.”
First transmission · 14.200 MHz · 26 December 2004
While my family and children left for the mainland, I chose to stay behind, alone, to help with the relief. From Hotel Sinclair in Port Blair, running on generators and batteries, we passed hundreds of messages on 7090 and 14195 kHz — for the government, for families across India and the world, and to trace the whereabouts of fifteen stranded foreign tourists. It was the first amateur operation from the islands in seventeen years, and for weeks it was one of the only links to the outside.
For days, contact with the mainland was cut off, and people did not know whether I was alive. Many wrote to NIAR asking, “Is Bharathi alive, or did she pass away?” When they finally heard my voice on the air and knew I was safe and coordinating relief, the joy across the ham community was indescribable. Knowing that my presence on the radio brought hope — and helped save lives — is something I will never forget.
The Andaman tsunami proved beyond doubt that when mobile networks and satellite links fail, amateur radio remains the ultimate lifeline. It needs no complex infrastructure — just a radio, a battery, a wire antenna, and a dedicated operator.
Two decades before the tsunami, I used amateur radio to help save four international sailors adrift in a small boat — an early reminder that a single operator on the right frequency can change the outcome.
For over four decades, amateur radio has carried the traffic when disaster struck — often through the NIAR RACES emergency teams I helped build and coordinate.
RACES — the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service.
