Members of the Shawnee Amateur Radio Association and the Union County Amateur Radio Club will participate in the National Amateur Radio Field Day exercise, June 24-25 at the Lake Egypt Fire Station near Market Street and Lake Egypt Road.
Since 1933, ham radio operators across North America have established temporary radio stations in public locations during Field Day to showcase the science and skill of amateur radio.
"Ham radio functions completely independent of the internet or cellphone infrastructure, can interface with tablets or smartphones, and can be set up almost anywhere in minutes. That's the beauty of amateur radio during a communications outage," said Sean Kutzko of the American Radio Relay League, the national association for Amateur Radio.
Hams can literally throw a wire in a tree for an antenna, connect it to a battery-powered transmitter and communicate halfway around the world, Kutzko added. "Hams do this by using a layer of Earth's atmosphere as a sort of mirror for radio waves."
For more information about Field Day, contact Ed Bloom, S.A.R.A. Field Day publicity officer, at (814) 254-6800 or visit www.arrl.org/what-is-ham-radio.
