Area 'hams' to show emergency skills at Petros Park on June 26-27

Press-News area “hams” of the Massillon Amateur Radio Club  will join with thousands of Amateur Radio operators who will be showing off their emergency capabilities this weekend
On the weekend of June 26-27, the public will have a chance to meet and talk with ham radio operators who are members of the Amateur Radio Service. Thenewest digital and satellite capabilities and voice communications, as well historical Morse code, hams from across the USA will be demonstrated.
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.
This annual event, called “Field Day” is 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 will construct 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.
“We hope that people will come and see for themselves, 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 650,000 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 emergency communications to thousands of state and local emergency response agencies, all for free.
To learn more about Amateur Radio, visit www.emergency-radio.org.