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Page 8/The Battalion/Monday, September 30, 1985
400 aided in quake crisis
MSC Radio helping Aggies
Photo by JAIME LOPEZ
Eduard Bessoudo, a genetic engineering graduate student from
Mexico City, is helping keep in touch with Mexico City. Volun
teers mans the radio till around 3 a.m. every morning.
By JUNEPANG
Staff Writer
“C,Q; C,Q; this is W5AC,this is
W5AC, go ahead, ...”
That’s how MSC Radio Commit
tee members begin conversations
with people all over the world. The
committee uses Ham radio to com
municate with people around the
globe.
Ham radio, a nickname for ama
teur radio, played a key role in com
municating with Mexico City after
an earthquake shook that city last
Thursday, damaging telephone lines
between Mexico and the rest of the
world.
The radio committee handled 400
messages during the week after the
earthquake, said Bob Plested, com
mittee chairman.
“One member heard on the
(Ham) radio Thursday (Sept. 19)
night that there was an emergency in
Mexico,” Plested said. “Some Mexi
can students knew we had the fa
cility. They wanted to find out about
their families.”
By Friday morning, the first day
after the disaster, most Mexican stu
dents who had families in Mexico
city knew the phone number of the
committee either through friends or
through International Students
Services, Plested said. They called
the committee to ask for help.
“Thursday night, we worked until
three o’clock in the morning,” he
said. “The first two days after the
earthquake, our phones just rang
constantly.”
Accoraing to John Meigs, a mem
ber of the committee, normally it
takes about 30 minutes to contact a
Ham radio operator in Mexico City.
But right after the earthquake, al
most all the Ham radio operators in
Mexico City were prepared to be on
the air, so it only took a few minutes,
he said.
Once an operator in the United
States has gotten in touch with an
operator in Mexico, he gives a list of
peoples’ names and phone numbers
to contact to find out their situations.
Then, the American operator waits
for an answer while the other opera
tor makes phone calls. This process
can take from five minutes to one
hour depending on how many
phone calls he has to make, Meigs
said.
When there is not an emergency,
the operators in the MSC Radio
Committee also perform other serv
ices such as sending birthday mes-
ssages to relatives and friends all
over the country, Plested said. The
MSC Radio Committee usually has
from 40 to 50 members, over half
are licensed, he said.
Because of the capability of two-
way communication, Ham radio at
tracts many people, Meigs said.
“Ham radio operators are like an
international fraternity,” he said.
“There are certain people I’ve talked
to several times.”
He said he talked about “what
happens in life” with them and their
“ups and downs.”
Dr. Dave Brooks, a licensed Ham
radio operator who helped the com
mittee during the earthquake crisis,
said that owning a Ham radio is not
as expensive as people might think.
Brooks, an associate professor in
oceanography at Texas A&M, esti
mated that a Ham radio can cost
from two to three hundred dollars to
tens of thousands.
Meigs said with the right weather,
sun conditions and a little patience
even a simple Ham radio is capable
of world-wide communications.
Meeting focuses on immigration
Associated Press
CORPUS CHRISTI — After con
verging on this coastal city for the
International Immigration Sympo
sium 1985, factions left with re
newed zeal to work on policy re
forms, a symposium official said.
Immigrant aid groups voiced
grievances with U.S. Immigration
and Naturalization Service officials
while cultural groups debated with
Washington lobbyists over employer
sanctions and pending legislation.
The symposium attracted diverse
political, cultural and academic ac
tivists.
And after it was over, participants
went home ready to re-work immi
gration policies, NIFCF President
Rick Swartz said.
“Although the symposium was not
a decision-making body, both spon
sors seemed enthusiastic about its ac
complishments,” he said.
“The symposium showed that
while there is some disagreement in
tactics and specifics of immigration
policy reform, there is a lot of
strength in the community that
could facilitate change.”
Among the participants were the
National Council of La Raza, the
Mexican American Legal Defense
and Educational Fund, the Ameri
can GI Forum, as well as leaders
from Lutheran, Jewish and Catholic
organizations.
Although the majority of the
more than 100 participants seemed
dissatisfied with pending immigra
tion legislation, Swartz said few
doubt that immigration reforms are
needed.
But symposium participants did
more than just discuss immigration
problems and policy. Workshop
panels worked on specific courses of
action, most designed to disseminate
information on immigration legis
lation.
Participants agreed to create a
Texas-Mexican Immigration Task
Force and gather in Laredo on
Wednesday. The task force will mo
bilize a lobbying effort to educate
South Texas congressional rep
resentatives on immigration.
Ray Leal, a symposium partici
pant, said the group will invite seve
ral Mexico governors and mayors as
well.
The task force also will focus on
U.S. immigration policy and discuss
ideas on now it can benefit both
countries. Leal said.
Another workshop panel urged
participants to start a media cam
paign to educate politicians as well as
the general public on problems with
pending immigration legislation.
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