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In late June, Gloucester and Mathews “hams” joined with thousands of Amateur Radio operators in Gloucester to show off their emergency capabilities. In the Gloucester area, the Middle Peninsula Radio Club (MPARC) demonstrated Amateur Radio at Beaverdam Park (North).
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 worldwide. 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 25-26, the public had a chance to meet and talk with Gloucester and Mathews ham radio operators and see for themselves what the Amateur Radio Service is about. Showing the newest digital, voice communications and even historical Morse code, hams from across the USA held public demonstrations of emergency communications abilities.
At the local demonstration, eight year old Tyler Safranek and his older sister Lizzy, who will be a freshman at Gloucester High School this fall, passed their General Class license test which now gives them world wide phone privileges on the ham radio bands. They are the grandchildren of Joe and Joy Safranek, who were present for the testing and enjoyed the weekend event mentoring their “harmonics,” as operators sometimes refer to their children in Ham Radio Talk.
This annual event, called “Field Day,” was 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 constructed emergency stations in parks, shopping malls, schools and backyards around the country. Their slogan, “When All Else Fails, Ham Radio Works” 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 35,000 amateur radio operators across the country participated in last year’s event.
“. . . This is not your grandfather’s radio anymore,” said Allen Pitts, W1AGP, 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!”
There are over 685,000 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 both emergency communications for thousands of state and local emergency response agencies and nonemergency community services too, all for free.
Further information is available here , and Ham Radio classes are held on Saturdays at the Abingdon Rescue Squad on Old Hayes Rd in Hayes. You can also learn more about Amateur Radio by visiting here . See what modern Amateur Radio can do. They can even help you get on the air!
Following is a list of some of the participants in the local Field Day, and their calls by which most hams are known:
KI4LXT Joe J. Imburgia, our club president
N4QEX Dr. John Myles, assisting in the testing
KJ4EYT Dr. Joe G. Foreman from Alexandria, VA, here for the testing
W4GSF Britt Belyea
WS3G Will Grant in charge of the event and chief cook
K4JJS Joe and W3JMS Joy Safranek, testing and mentoring
KK4AUS Tyler and sister KJ4CYD Lizzy Safranek
K4SKD Jerry Unverferth, on the main station
N1NO Mark Lowell, antenna man
KN0S Dr. David L Justis, testing mentoring and photography
For more information, contact Joseph J. Imbergia Jr., President Middle Peninsula Amateur Radio Club,
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