Whilst not a new event or sota related it is a recent article about the role of radio amateurs in emergency communications. Something a number on here have experience of using off grid comms.
BBC News - ‘You’re on standby for Lockerbie’ - volunteers recall their role after Pan Am bombing
A while back I was watching some old news clips from Lockerbie and saw a lot of cars marked Raynet so this will be interesting. Thanks for the link Ian @G7ADF.
Why not go back to the beginning, with the role of hams during the north sea flood disaster of 1952/
…thanks for that. Tell me, does Raynet still exist?
Geoff vk3sq
Yep.
https://www.raynet-uk.net/oseasorg.asp
The Northern Ireland branch had a stand at the IRTS Hamfest earlier this year:
Do the maths, just about everyone involved will be dead and sadly it’s hard to interview those people.
The story is part of the BBC Your Voice and relies on the people in the story getting touch with the BBC. Like the last sentence says “If there are issues you would like to see covered, you can get in touch via BBC Your Voice”.
I don’t need to do the maths, Andy, I was eleven at the time and clearly remember both the storm and the extensive news coverage. Nor was I suggesting that the participants should be interviewed, since interest in RAEN had been expressed I tthought it would be relevant to look at the origins of the service. There is plenty on record anyway, no need for interviews.
In a BBC program called “Your Voice” the entire raison d’être of the program is to give people involved in a story a chance to be heard. If you are unable to interview the people as they have shuffled off their mortal coil and joined the choir invisible then it doesn’t make a good subject for a program featuring the voices of the participants. 
And it was December 21st yesterday, the 38th anniversary of the incident. All these facts conspire to bring us such programs.
Of course, Andy, nevertheless, since the topic of Raynet was involved its origins in a far greater but now less remembered disaster minght well be of interest to our participants. No harm in mentioning it, though it seems to have wakened gatekeeper tendencies in you!
Very much so, yes! There are national groups and independent groups.
I decided to join my local independent group because they have an excellent reputation.
We provide communications at numerous events each year. Event organisers are responsible for the welfare of their participants, for which purpose they need robust communications. 4g/5g signal is patchy on Exmoor, the Quantocks, the Blackdowns and other places.
We also have an MoU with the local authority - to agree the emergency response capabilities for radio communications in an emergency as part of Somerset Emergency Voluntary Agencies Group (SEVAG).
In many parts of the UK, such arrangements would have existed in the past? With the roll out of mobile phone networks (and a period of relative stability), I expect many of those arrangements lapsed (e.g. antennas removed from key locations for example).
It’s interesting to see renewed interest in Raynet (and Ham Radio licenses) due to increased awareness of risk - extended power cuts being the main concern.
Of course, looking at our license conditions, any of us could be called-on to assist in such cases, however it makes sense to connect with your local group. 
I was asked to join because of my interest in SOTA. I mainly get involved in the long-distance walks/races and for some unknown reason seem to get tasked with sitting on the tops of hills in remote areas . Sometimes I can combine the 2 activities (not simultaneously obviously), but other times it’s just a nice walk out and a bit of a play with radios. It can get quite technical though on the bigger events with repeaters and multiple frequencies. I think Lockerbie must rank as one of the most extreme examples of Raynet activities! Some of the sights would have been tough for professional emergency service workers, never mind “amateurs”.
I was in Tayside Raynet at that time and a few guys around here went down. I went down on Boxing Day. I got assigned to an Army search team of about 25, along with a policeman.
By that time comms seemed to be smooth, don’t recall doing very much other than following the search team around and hanging around field gates with my FT290!!
An ex work colleague was an engineer for Cellnet at that time, he recalls spending days nursing temp cell sites in horse boxes. The demand for mobile was huge, mainly from the press. The Motorola 900Mhz TACS transmitters were running full duty cycle and popping PA’s, to the extent they had to get more spares delivered from all over UK.
I am sure @GM4COX Jack would have been down also, probably professionally rather than Raynet.
73 Gavin
GM3GAV
I saw that article yesterday.
I volunteer with Mountain Rescue Search Dogs and one of the dog handlers I work with was at Lockerbie as part of the emergency response. When I mentioned that I used to be in RAYNET, he knew all about it.
Good morning Gavin (and Gang),
Yes, I was down for the whole duration, returning home just before the New Year. You might have remembered myself and of course others manning Raynet Control; along with other jobs - battery replacement on the cross-band kit, and setting up new crossbanders as the search broadened SE-wards towards the English Bordered & Kielder.
I was also assigned to work with the Boeing Investigation Team. And the clip shown on the BBC interviewing the Ayrshire Raynet Operator about us knowing about a potential ‘bombing’ and ‘coding’ the message is possibly a bit of wishful thinking on his part. That’s not what occurred.
Interestingly, I’ve been asked to give a talk at the East Kilbride University of the Third Age (U3A) next year (probably about Sept - busy throughout the rest of the year). Margaret who is a personal friend and their Programme Organiser ‘kinda’ twisted my arm - hi! I think this was as a consequence of the BBC Docu/Drama about Lockerbie and the Netflix film. I took a series of slides. I know that this maybe a bit ‘ghoulish’ to some but no gruesome shots; just to record what was actually happening.
On the Motorola front. By this time I’d left the big ‘M’ and was working for Marconi Instruments. They wonder where the ‘h**l’ I had disappeared to when I eventually got a message to them via Anne (xyl GM4UXX) and our Raynet crossband repeater (installed in the early hours of Thursday morning (22nd) - Green Lowther - not quite on GM/SS-056 - between it and the CCA Site) linking Lockerbie to Glasgow. As you mentioned Gavin both the PSTN and the primitive Cell Network couldn’t cope with the traffic.
What a time, harrowing but amazed at how we and all the different services and organisations pulled together in such a tragic scene. I don’t think one would ever experience anything like this unless possibly in a war scenario?
Jack(;>(