Members of the 721MCB amateur radio club in Warren County will be participating in the national Amateur Radio Field Day exercise, beginning at 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 23 ending Sunday, June 24 also at 2 p.m. The exercise will take place at Demeter’s Farm at the corner of Demeter Rd and Buckhorn Dr., Washington.

Since 1933, ham radio operators across North America have established temporary “ham” radio stations in public locations during Field Day weekend to showcase the science and skill of Amateur Radio. The event is open to the public and all are encouraged to attend. Over 45,000 “hams” from thousands of locations participated in Field Day in 2017.

For over 100 years, Amateur Radio has allowed people from all walks of life to experiment with electronics and communications techniques, as well as provide a free public service to their communities during a disaster, all without needing a cell phone or the Internet. Field Day demonstrates ham radio’s ability to work reliably under any conditions from almost any location and create an independent communications network. Ham operators train and prepare to support emergency communications by providing radio links when other communications channels aren’t working.

This year’s event is particularly poignant in the wake of the impact of hurricanes in Florida, Texas and Puerto Rico; the latter which left critical communications solely to the responsibility of amateur operators in the first critical days after the storm struck. “In disasters, we’ve learned that cell towers won’t work and ham operators play a huge role when that happens.” said Rob Roschewsk, American Radio Relay League Northern New Jersey Section Manager. “Ham radio functions completely independent of the Internet or cell phone infrastructure, and can be set up almost anywhere in minutes. That’s the beauty of amateur radio during a communications outage.” “Hams can literally throw a wire in a tree for an antenna, connect it to a generator, solar or battery-powered transmitter and communicate effectively with others,” Roschewsk added. “In today’s electronic do-it-yourself (DIY) environment, ham radio remains one of the best ways for people to learn about electronics, physics, meteorology, and numerous other scientific disciplines, and is a huge asset to any community during disasters if the standard communication infrastructure goes down….amateur radio remains contemporary and more important than ever”.

Anyone may become a licensed Amateur Radio operator; there are more licensed US operators today than ever before. And local clubs such as those listed on the attachment, make it easy for anybody to get involved .

For more information contact Rob Roschewsk at info@wc2fd.com or visit www.arrl.org/what-is-ham-radio or the local 721MCB website at http://wc2fd.com/fd18/