Amateur radio operators show off their skills for radio week June 23-24
The Haywood County Amateur Radio Club will construct an emergency station in the parking lot of the Employees’ Credit Union facility on Paragon Parkway June 23-24 to celebrate “Amateur Radio Week” with other ham radio operators across the U.S.
The group will demonstrate the use of ham radios’ new capabilities and teach people how to get their own FCC radio license from 2 p.m. June 23 to 2 p.m. June 24. The event is open to the public.
During 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 worldwide. The radio 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 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 lose communications,” said Allen Pitts, of the national amateur radio association ARRL. “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.”
