The FIRST Response field trial participants have endured a 14-hour bumpy bus ride, equipment glitches and power cuts.

Upon arrival in Nagapattinam at 5am today, they quickly set up their equipment (including attaching the antennae to a drain pipe on the roof). The FM station was live on air by 6:30am and they received their first telephone call from a listener about 7:15am, quite surprisingly.

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The team members were welcomed to Nagapattinam by Mr Parameswaran and a bunch of smiling children. He kindly made his children’s home facility available for the field trial. The 3-story children’s home is the highest building for a long long way; Nagapattinam is very flat so the signal is reaching throughout the town.

Jon Hargreaves, Feba’s International Director, reports: “About an hour after arrival the FM team went on air with a song, and the short wave team began putting their programmes together. (We had planned for them to have a short sleep after arrival but because we left so late and arrived so late, they went right into action.)”

Jon continues: “We’ve had a constant stream of visitors to the FM station. Word of mouth has gotten around and we’re also distributing flyers. This is the first terrestrial FM station (community station) in Nagapattinam, so there is a huge amount of interest.” He says they plan to meet the district commissioner of police this afternoon and other officials as a courtesy to keep them informed, telling the message of how important it is to not just be prepared for disasters but also the possibility to use radio to respond to disasters. 

The field trial participants are working hard to accomplish all of their goals. They have to broadcast for a certain number of hours, number of programmes, number of interviews, types of programmes as well as meet technical criteria. With some short power cuts (the longest lasting 20-30 minutes), they switched to the generator and continued on air using standby power. They have broadcast a few telephone call interviews and have had a number of visits from dignitaries and various other people.