Tri-County Amateur Radio Field Day is June 23-24 - ClickThePaper ...

Participants in this year's Field Day will begin setting up late Friday afternoon to be ready to get people on the air starting at 2 p.m. on Saturday. The field day continues until 2 p.m. on Sunday. The public is invited to stop by Braselton Town Hall where the field day will take place.

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.

These radio operators (often called ?hams?) provide backup communications for everything from the American Red Cross to FEMA and even the International Space Station.

The Tri-County Amateur Radio Club ?hams? will join with thousands of other Amateur Radio operators showing their emergency capabilities the weekend of June 23-24 at the Braselton City Hall.

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 world-wide. When trouble is brewing, Amateur Radio?s people are often the first to provide rescuers with critical information and communications. On the weekend of June 23-24, the public will have a chance to meet and talk with Barrow, Hall and Jackson County ham radio operators and see for themselves what the Amateur Radio Service is all about as hams across the USA hold public demonstrations of emergency communications abilities.

This annual event, called ?Field Day,? is the climax of the week long ?Amateur Radio Week? sponsored by the Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL), the national association for ham operators. 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.?

The Tri County Amateur Radio Club will be demonstrating Amateur Radio operations at the Braselton City Hall from 2 p.m. on?June 23 until 2 p.m. on?June 24. The club?invites 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.

Tri-County Club meets on the fourth Monday of every month at the Braselton Police?Department Community Room, located in the rear of the building, on the lower lever. The club also holds a weekly ?on-air? net each Monday night (except on the fourth Monday.)

There will also be a Skywarn table at the event so if you would like to learn more about this program come by; you do not need to be a ham to be a Skywarn spotter. The club also has an on-air weekly Skywarn training net.

Amateur Radio is growing in the United States. There are now more than?700,000 Amateur Radio licensees in the U.S., and more than 2.5 million around the world. Through the ARRL?s Amateur Radio Emergency Services program, ham volunteers provide both emergency communications for thousands of state and local emergency response agencies and non-emergency community services too, all for free.

The public is most cordially invited to come, meet and talk with the club hams and Skywarn members, but if you don?t have the opportunity to come on field day you are invited to attend the clubs monthly meeting on the fourth Monday of each month at the Braselton Police Department, community room, enter from rear of building. See what modern Amateur Radio can do. They can even help you get on the air.

To learn more about Amateur Radio, go to www.emergency-radio.org. Visit the Tri County Amateur Radio Club website at www.tricountyarc.com.?Learn more about Skywarn?at skywarn.tricountyarc.com.

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