 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||
|
|
 |
Amateur Radio
awareness has rarely been higher than it is right NOW, and the opportunity for
great PR is here! The seemingly endless
parade of hurricanes across
Once again "ham radio" came through when other systems were overwhelmed or just failed. But unlike previous disasters, this one just kept coming and coming for weeks.
Go beyond just your local papers:
Offering to meet and discuss ham radio with television and cable outlets is one way to increase your audience of NON-hams. They are especially interested if you can take them on a tour of an EOC or other emergency facility.
Think about area housing or condominium associations. The same people who were hunting ham antennas as eyesores are now looking at them as a place to get help in a crisis.
Do you have a speakers' bureau? Service and fraternal groups are interested in what we're doing as never before.
The point is
that we have the interest of the country at this time. We have their curiosity. We have a great opportunity in which we are
being welcomed, even being asked, for information by NON-hams. They've seen what happened in
For more information, contact: (fill in your info)
TOWN, State, date of release --
While most residents were boarding up their homes, Amateur Radio
operators throughout
Entire sections of the state
and US Gulf Coast looked to Amateur Radio for emergency communications. Once
again, hundreds of Amateur Radio operators provided critical aid when other
means of communication were damaged or overloaded. In some areas, Amateur Radio
was the ONLY means of communication after the storm passed.
In addition to manning Emergency Operations Centers, ARES teams along the Gulf
have been providing communication support for the Red Cross, The Salvation Army
and the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief organization. ARES already is
assisting with damage assessment activity, for the first time using Global
Positioning System units and computerized mapping as an aid.
Even condominium associations who once looked at ham antennas as an eye-sore are now seeking people with these same antennas as a source of news and help.
Amateur Radio volunteers throughout the
"Ham radio will certainly be part of the fabric of homeland defense and Amateur Radio operators have always been of the mindset that they want to do something for their country," says ARRL president Jim Haynie. President Haynie later had occasion to show this was more than just talk when he himself went out into the storm to aid in replacing an antenna that had blown down.
In the event of a natural or man-made disaster, certified volunteers work with community organizations to relay vital information in a structured and accurate manner. They are skilled at composing and relaying messages by voice and through computer based Amateur Radio communications modes. Trained volunteers join local Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) networks and support emergency activities ranging from equipment logistics, victim location and identification, emergency shelter, food and water information, medical equipment and material distribution, and, sometimes, life-and-death communication.
For decades, Amateur Radio operators have
been there during emergencies. Today, there are nearly 700,000 Amateur Radio
operators in the
NOMINATE A LOCAL REPORTER FOR THE LEONARD AWARD
If you've seen a particularly good article on ham radio in print, on television, or heard one on the radio, you might want to nominate the reporter for the 2004 Bill Leonard, W2SKE, Professional Media Award. The deadline for nominations is December 3, 2004. Nominated work must have appeared between December 3, 2003 and December 3, 2004.
The annual award honors a professional journalist whose outstanding coverage in TV, radio, print or multimedia best reflects the enjoyment, importance and public service value of Amateur Radio. The award was created as a tribute to the late CBS News President Bill Leonard, W2SKE. He was an avid Amateur Radio operator, and most active on the air during the 1960s and 1970s.
Nominations are judged by members of the League's PR Committee, and the final decision is made during the ARRL Board meeting in January. The winner receives an engraved plaque and a cash award of $500. Please note that some news organizations prohibit journalists from entering contests that offer monetary awards. Checking with your potential nominee ahead of time is a good idea.
Rules for Entry
participating in the activity of licensed Amateur Radio or "ham radio," as governed by Part 97 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
For more information about the award, or to obtain a nomination form and the official rules for entry, contact ARRL's Media Relations Department, newsmedia@arrl.org, 860-594-0328.
The League's public relations reflector is a great source of helpful advice on nearly every aspect of Amateur Radio PR. Planning ahead on what is the story, what are your main talking points and what you want to accomplish in an interview or release is important. But you can also plan on two questions to be lurking in the background:
1. What is the excitement of ham radio today in the age of the internet?
My answer to this is always personal. In my travels I am constantly shocked at just how BIG the country really is. I can often become parochial in my thinking about the world, but an airline trip quickly changes my perspective again. It's BIG out there! Then I look at my radio and my antennas - systems that I built up myself - and wonder at the magic of how that little piece of aluminum tubing or wire allows me to talk across such continents. I myself made this, and it conquers the bigness to make friends I will never meet. Nothing on the internet can beat that magic. Personal answers get noticed.
2. What can you do with it?
Remember that
our main objective is the NON-ham.
Their picture of Amateur Radio is probably limited to CW or phone
operations. Mention digital, SSTV or
other modes and you will probably get follow-up questions. While not getting off your main points, it's
a good idea to expand the perceptions of our audience. We do a
The backbone of ARRL Public Relations is a grassroots effort centered in our PIC's and PIO's - that's YOU. No matter if you are a media professional or just a person who volunteered to help out, we're all volunteers here and the excitement of seeing your work on television, on the radio or in print keeps us all going. Knowing that we are doing it for a great activity makes it even more delicious. Be sure to have fun.
If an interview or article gets screwed up, that can happen. It's OK, we learn from these errors and at least we tried. But if we fail to have fun in our work, then we will lose everything in a volunteer enterprise. So have some fun. The opportunities have never been better for us to promote Amateur Radio.
Click here for a list of public relations links from the Best of PR
