LIVERMORE – Members of the Bass Hill Repeater Group and Franklin County Amateur Radio Emergency Service spent the weekend, June 23 and 24, in a field near Round Pond in Livermore, participating in the national Amateur Radio Field Day exercise. Since 1933, ham radio operators across North America have established temporary ham radio stations in public locations during Field Day to showcase the science and skill of Amateur Radio.
For more than 100 years, Amateur Radio — sometimes called ham radio — has allowed people from all walks of life to experiment with electronics and communications techniques, as well as provide a free public service to their communities during a disaster or emergency, all without needing a cell phone or the Internet. Field Day demonstrates ham radio’s ability to work reliably under any conditions from almost any location and create an independent communications network. More than 35,000 people from thousands of locations participated in Field Day in 2018.
Locally, BHRG/ARES members arrived Saturday morning at the Field Day site to set up antennas and a generator and run power and antenna cables to a small camper used as a temporary radio station or “ham shack.” Starting at 2 p.m. on Saturday, and non-stop for the following 24 hours, members made radio contacts with other operators across North America and Canada. Using voice and Morse Code, they made over 400 contacts.
Operators this year included Tom Marshall, Farmington; Bill and Michelle Mann, Monmouth; John Huffman, Waterford; George Szadis, Winthrop; Randy Gauvin, Farmington; and Paul Gooch, Wells.
Anyone interested in getting involved in ham radio is welcome to contact the Franklin County Emergency Management Agency at 778-5892 for more information.
man, sorry I missed this!
A couple of years I had a chat with some local “hams” and was “pleased” to hear that there were still a few that that communicated per CW (m code)
I was a radio operator at APO 24 quite a few years ago and from time to time I do a refresher dit dah drill to see what I had forgotten (Can’t let all that government training go to waste!)
I really was not all that good at it (slow 20 wpm!) My boss (radio chief) could do a speed key faster than I could talk!
I had to do 13 wpm to get my Advanced license, KE1BN, about 23 years ago, but haven’t used it since. I always hear about this after it’s over. Wish they’d put advance notice in here instead of just a report after it’s over.
I’m so glad you were all “radio-active” on Field Day! Congratulations for a good show.