Despite the Internet, cell phones, email and modern communications, every year whole regions find themselves in the dark.
Tornadoes, fires, storms, ice and even the occasional cutting of fiber optic cables leave people without the means to communicate. In these cases, the one consistent service that has never failed has been amateur radio, or “Ham” radio. Operators of these radios, often called “hams,” provide backup communications for everything from the American Red Cross to FEMA and even for the International Space Station. Houston’s “hams” will join with thousands of other Amateur Radio operators showing their emergency capabilities this Saturday (June 23) during the annual “Field Day” event.
Over the past year, the news has been full of reports of ham radio operators providing critical communications during unexpected emergencies in towns across American 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. This weekend, the public will have a chance to meet and talk with Houston’s ham radio operators and see for themselves what the amateur radio service is about as hams across the U.S. will be holding public demonstrations of emergency communications abilities.
Field Day is the climax of the week long Amateur Radio Week sponsored by the Amateur 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 restaurant parking lots 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 Houston area, the Ozark Mountain Amateur Radio Club will be demonstrating Amateur Radio Saturday at the Pizza Express in Houston (on U.S. 63 next to Walmart). Club members 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.
To learn more about the Field Day event, call club president Willy Adey at 573-674-2174 or stop by the event.