With Varying Frequency – Amateur Radio Ponderings

NEWS RELEASE – “Radio Hams” from Manitowoc County join in national deployment – Public Demo of Emergency Communications June 27 – 28, 2009 18 - June - 2009

NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release

For additional information contact: Steve Weinert , K9ZW, Mancorad Board Member

“Radio Hams” from Manitowoc County join in national deployment

Public Demo of Emergency Communications June 27 – 28

Manitowoc, WI June 18, 2009 – Manitowoc County W9DK Mancorad Radio Club’s “hams” will join with thousands of Amateur Radio operators who will be showing off their emergency capabilities the weekend of June 27th & 28th.

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. During Hurricane Katrina, Amateur Radio – often called “Ham radio” – was often the ONLY way people could communicate, and hundreds of volunteer “hams” traveled south to save lives and property.

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 27 – 28, the public will have a chance to meet and talk with Manitowoc County’s ham radio operators and see for themselves what the Amateur Radio Service is about. Showing the newest digital and satellite capabilities, voice communications and even historical Morse code, hams from 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, schools and back yards around the country. Their slogan, “Ham radio works when other systems don’t! ” 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 30,000 amateur radio operators across the country participated in last year’s event.

-more-

“We hope that people will come and see for themselves, this is not your grandfather’s radio anymore,” said Allen Pitts of the ARRL. “The communications that ham radio people can quickly create have saved many lives when other systems failed or were overloaded. And besides that – it’s fun!”

In the Manitowoc Lakeshore area, the W9DK Mancorad Radio Club will be demonstrating Amateur Radio at the Public Safety Building at Lakeshore Technical College (LTC) Cleveland Campus on Saturday June 27th through Sunday June 28th. Between Noon and 3:30 pm Saturday June 27th they specially invite 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.

Saturday June 27th at 2 pm a short classroom presentation on the effective “Hamcram” Mancorad amateur radio licensing class will off detailed information on how you can become involved as a licensed ham operator.

The Mancorad W9DK Radio Club & LTC activation is specially noteworthy being an activation of a full EOC (Emergency Operations Center) LTC built for the training of emergency leadership from around the country. The EOC is located in the Public Safety Building on the East side of the LTC Campus and features full emergency generator power backup, dedicated EOC Ham Radio Equipment and is one of very few taring EOCs. Some power for this special event will come from the alternate energy generation of LTC’s wind turbine.

There are over 650,000 Amateur Radio licensees in the US, and more than 2.5 million around the world. Through the ARRL’s Amateur Radio Emergency Services program, ham volunteers provide emergency communications for thousands of state and local emergency response agencies, all for free.

To learn more about Amateur Radio, go to www.emergency-radio.org For information on Mancorad W9DK, including information on how to earn a ham radio license, go to www.w9dk.com Lakeshore Technical College information can be found at www.gotoltc.edu The public is most cordially invited to come, meet and talk with the hams. See what modern Amateur Radio can do. They can even help you get on the air!

###