Lehi CERT Puts Focus on Ham Radios with Weekly Practice:

eHam.net News — Every Wednesday at 8 p.m., Lehi resident Jeff McGrath uses his ham radio to call out to other residents, Community Emergency Response Team members and community members as part of the Lehi Preparedness Net. “Calling the Lehi Area Preparedness Net, Calling the Lehi Area Preparedness Net. This is net control station November-One-Sierra-Charlie and my name is Jeff McGrath,” he announces. As he goes through his script, taking check-ins and making announcements, he and the other participants practice how to use their ham radios and interact with each other. McGrath, who has been using ham radios for years, said the weekly practices with the Lehi Preparedness Net are important because ham radios can come in handy during an emergency, but they’ll be useless without practice and charged batteries. “A lot of people will go out and buy a radio and never use it,” he said. “Then if they need to, they don’t know how.” Ham radios can play an important role in assisting with communication in natural disasters or emergency situations. That’s why the Lehi CERT group focuses on them and making sure people are prepared to use them. “If there was any sort of major natural disaster, and we’ve seen this with other disasters in the past, cellphone systems get inundated and make it really difficult to try and pass information along,” McGrath said. “Radio is just one more avenue that allows you to try to communicate.”

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217023 http://ift.tt/2jBJe8c
via IFTTT

from WordPress http://ift.tt/2jC9FKW
via IFTTT