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Flotilla 04-08
is a hard working Flotilla .
We have just a few members, 33, and are
always looking for more.
Our members get along and everyone is happy in
the activities and positions they fulfill for the USCGAUX.
Explore our
pages here and learn more about us and what you can do in the Auxiliary.
New radio tower worth the wait
10/2/2006
6:00 PM (WROC-TV)
New radio tower worth the wait
There's a stick of steel now keeping boaters safer as they ply
the waters of Lake Ontario. News 8 Now's Dave McKinley reports
on how it took a decade and a half of perseverance, to make it
so.
To most it appears as nothing more than a 60-foot stick of
steel, standing along a lonely stretch of Lake Ontario
shoreline. But for mariners, it is the long sought after last
link in communicating between Coast Guard stations in Buffalo
and Rochester. Because for the longest time, the lack of
something like it, left boaters in potentially dire straights,
should they get in trouble in the areas north of Devils Nose in
Hamlin Beach State Park.
"It was very iffy if a boater got in trouble in that area
whether they could reach help either from Buffalo or the station
Rochester from their boat radio," says Ann Roller of the US
Coast Guard Auxiliary.
Despite the apparent need, the Coast Guard was unable to rectify
the situation.
"They have a limited budget, it's maybe one-tenth what other
military has. They have so many other needs that a radio tower
on the shores of Lake Ontario doesn't rank up as high as
national security," says Roller.
So members of the Hamlin Flotilla of the Us Coast Guard
Auxiliary decided they'd do something about it.
"Well, we all come from different backgrounds, we're a pretty
diverse group," says Peter Urgola of the US Coast Guard
Auxiliary.
So they scrounged parts:
"The tower itself, the wiring the coupling," says Roller.
And raised the money, and raised the tower, themselves.
"And they kept pushing year after year and one little thing
would get done one year and then they'd push again and another
thing would get done the next year," says Roller.
It took them 15 years but, by golly, they got it done.
"Slow but sure, like the tortoise!" says Roller.
So perhaps this is indeed more than a tower of steel...it could
well be a monument of sorts, to a dedicated group of volunteers
who come heck--or high water--were determined to put something
back in to the community.
"And I think for the most part that's the motivation for all the
folks that ultimately join the auxiliary, is to put something
back into the community," says Urgola.
Most boaters have cell phones, but the coast guard auxiliary
says they can't replace ship to shore radios. For one thing,
cell phones are iffy once you're out on the lake, and even you
can place a call- it only reaches one party, whereas an S.O.S.
put out over a radio frequency could reach any number of other
boaters--or auxiliary members who may be listening in from
shore.
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