Come see what we can do, say town’s amateur hams

Who:

Ramona Amateur Radio Society

What:

Field Day

Where:

Fire Station 82, 3410 Dye Road

When:

11 a.m. June 23 to 11 a.m. June 24

Why:

emergency-radio.org

By Richard Elling

Despite the Internet, cell phones, email and modern communications, every year entire regions find themselves in the dark.

Wildfires, tornadoes, storms, ice and even the occasional cutting of fiberoptic cables leave people without the means to communicate. In these cases, the one consistent service that has never failed has been amateur radio. These radio operators, often called “hams,” provide backup communications for everything from the American Red Cross to FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) and even for the International Space Station.

Ramona’s “hams” will join with thousands of other amateur radio operators showing their emergency capabilities this weekend.

Over the past year, the news has been full of reports of ham radio operators providing critical communications during unexpected emergencies in towns across America including the California wildfires, winter storms, tornadoes and other events worldwide. When trouble is brewing, amateur radio’s people are often the first to provide rescuers with critical information and communications.

On June 23-24, the public will have a chance to meet and talk with Ramona’s ham radio operators and see for themselves what the Amateur Radio Service is about, as hams across the USA hold public demonstrations of emergency communications abilities.

This annual event, called “Field Day,” is the climax of the weeklong Amateur Radio Week” sponsored by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), the national association for amateur radio. Using only emergency power supplies, ham operators will construct emergency stations in parks, shopping malls, schools and backyards around the country. Their slogan, “When All Else Fails, Ham Radio Works,” is more than just words to the hams as they prove they can send messages in many forms without the use of phone systems, Internet or any other infrastructure that can be compromised in a crisis. More than 35,000 amateur radio operators across the country participated in last year’s event.

“The fastest way to turn a crisis into a total disaster is to lose communications,” said Allen Pitts of the ARRL. “From the earthquake and tsunami in Japan to tornadoes in Missouri, ham radio provided the most reliable communication networks in the first critical hours of the events. Because ham radios are not dependent on the Internet, cell towers or other infrastructure, they work when nothing else is available. We need nothing between us but air.”

In the Ramona area, the Ramona Outback Amateur Radio Society (ROARS) will be demonstrating amateur radio at Ramona Fire Station 82 at 3410 Dye Road, near the intersection of state Route 67 and Dye Road from 11 a.m. on Saturday, June 23, to 11 a.m. Sunday, June 24. They invite the public to come and see ham radio’s new capabilities and learn how to get their own FCC radio license before the next disaster strikes.

Amateur radio is growing in the United States. There are over 700,000 amateur radio licensees in the country, and more than 2.5 million worldwide. Through the ARRL’s Amateur Radio Emergency Services program, ham volunteers provide emergency communications for thousands of state and local emergency response agencies as well as non-emergency community services, all for free.

To learn more about amateur radio, go to www.emergency-radio.org.

The public is invited to come, meet and talk with the hams. See what modern Amateur Radio can do. They can even help you get on the air.