Emergency Communications Special: EmComm From the Ground Up
The Story of Poland’s Masovian Amateur Radio Network
NOTE: All political opinions and characterizations in this article are those of the author only.
My name is Maciej “Miles” Muszalski, SQ5EBM. I was born in 1979 in a Soviet-occupied country, in Warsaw, Poland. You might say that radio was always there. I remember listening to the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, and scanning HF on a broadcast receiver. My grandpa was imprisoned by the communists for the Radio Solidarity illegal transmitter, transmitting freedom news on top of the official communist news broadcast. My dad, SQ5RTD, was a courier for Solidarity.
From my youngest days, I was aware of how important communication is and that it can help others. When communism fell, back in 1989/90, my dad bought a CB radio for his truck. CB was very popular back then as not too many people had telephone landlines and cell phones were in the realm of science-fiction. I got hooked on radio waves.
Some two-to-three years later, my dad became a volunteer for the EmComm HQ listening/relay station on CB that was located in Warsaw City Hall.
