June 18, 2022
Despite the Internet, cell phones, email and modern communications, every year whole regions finds themselves in the dark. Tornadoes, fire, storms, ice and even the occasional cutting of fiber optic cables leaves 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 for the International Space Station. Your Town’s “hams” will join with thousands of the other Amateur Radio operators showing their emergency capabilities the weekend of June 25 and 26.
Over the past year, the news has been full of reports of the ham radio operators providing critical communications during unexpected emergencies in towns across America including the California wildfires, winter storms, tornadoes, hurricanes and other events worldwide. When trouble is brewing, Amateur Radio people are often the first to provide rescuers with critical information and communications. On the weekend of June 25 and 26, the public will have a chance to meet and talk with ham radio operators from the Raytown CERT Amateur Radio team. You can see for yourself what Amateur Radio Service is all about as hams across the USA will be holding 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 ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio. Using only emergency power supplies, ham operators will construct emergency stations in parks, shopping malls grounds, schools and even 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 use of the 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 loose communications, said Allen Pitts former Media & Public Relations Manager for ARRL. From the earthquakes and tsunami in Japan to tornadoes in Missouri, ham radio provide the most reliable communications 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 Raytown CERT Radio Team (KCOERT) will be demonstrating Amateur Radio at 10000 E 59th Street Raytown, MO 64133 (behind Raytown City hall) on June 25 and 26. Time is 1:00 p.m. Saturday through 1:00 p.m. Sunday. They invite the public to come and see ham radio’s capabilities and learn how to get their own FCC radio license before the next disaster.
To learn more about Amateur Radio come and visit with us and talk radio. We will get you on the air. Ask us about the CERT program.
They will have a portable 440 repeater set up operating on 444.500 with tone 100.0.
