Ham Radio Field Day June 28-29

By Robyn Bennett
Public Affairs Office

Photo by Ray Lett

Amateur Radio operators (called “hams) in the United States and Canada will be showing off their emergency capabilities on June 28 and 29.

The operators of the Fort Monmouth MARS station and ham station K2USA, will join an expected 35,000 other “hams” in a 24-hour exercise beginning at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 28.

The 75th annual event, called “Field Day,” is the climax of the week long “Amateur Radio Week” sponsored by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), the National Association for Amateur Radio.

Using only emergency power and temporary antennas, ham operators throughout North America will exchange emergency messages using several technologies including Morse code. The Fort Monmouth station will be set up at Dean Field.

There are 650,000 Amateur Radio operators in the United States and more than 2.5 million around the world. Through the ARRL, ham volunteers provide emergency communications for the Citizens' Corps, Salvation Army, Federal Emergency Management Agency and hundreds of state and local agencies, all at no cost to the agencies.

“We hope that people will come and see for themselves what ham radio can do,” said Jeff Harshman, president of the Fort Monmouth ham operators.

“The communications networks that ham radio people can quickly create have saved many lives in the recent past when other systems failed or were overloaded,” he said.

To learn more about Amateur Radio, contact Donna Wilkins at 732-532-7083 or go to www.emergency-radio.org.

The public is invited to come to Dean Field from 2 p.m Saturday to 2 p.m. Sunday, to meet and talk with the hams.

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