Ham radio operators to demonstrate skills in McHenry County – Northwest Herald

The Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Services division of the McHenry County Emergency Management Agency will be participating in Field Day from 3 to 5 p.m. June 23 and 24.

Attendees will have an opportunity to get on the air using one of RACES’ official Field Day stations and learn what ham radio is all about.

Field Day is a 24-hour annual exercise sponsored by the American Radio Relay League, the national association for amateur radio. This is an opportunity for federally licensed radio amateurs to test their skills and equipment in the field by making radio contacts using various modes of communications with other operators across the country.

Amateurs have a long history of providing emergency communication when normal systems are overloaded or offline.

One example was during Hurricane Katrina, when ham radio was the only viable communication mechanism in the disaster area. In cases such as this, radio operators are quick to respond with their own equipment and at their own expense. Amateur radio operators also have assisted in supporting many large planned events, including the Chicago and Boston marathons.

As the name implies, Field Day is an exercise held outdoors using generator power. It is meant to simulate disaster conditions where commercial power would not be available. In addition, the exercise simulates the same challenges operators would face in a real disaster scenario.

During that weekend, amateur radio operators will be demonstrating various radio techniques ranging from classic Morse code to more modern digital and satellite communications. Several clubs in the area even will experiment with TV signals and microwave communications equipment.

The Field Day stations will be located behind the maintenance facility at 12394 Ware Road in Woodstock. Parking will be available off Route 47 and Seminary Avenue, just north of Ware Road.

For information about the event, call the McHenry County Emergency Management Agency at 815-338-6400 or visit http://www.mcraces.org or http://www.arrl.org/field-day.

Read the full article at http://www.nwherald.com/2018/06/09/ham-radio-operators-to-demonstrate-skills-in-mchenry-county/aifmi2q/. STRAY SIGNALS does not claim ownership of the article.

Tweet

!function(d,s,id) {
var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if(!d.getElementById(id)) {
js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);
}
}
(document,”script”,”twitter-wjs”);

from Stray Signals https://ift.tt/2xYui0h
via IFTTT