Field Day 2018
MidState Amateur Radio Club Hosts Open House While Participating in Field Day
A Public Invitation and Demo of Emergency Communications
June 23-24, 2018
Nationwide thousands of Ham Radio operators will be practicing our emergency capabilities the weekend of June 23rd and 24th. When trouble is brewing, ham radio operators are often the first to provide critical information and communications. In central Indiana, when the sky’s darken with storm clouds, trained local amateur radio operators become official storm spotters for the National Weather Service reporting what’s happening “on the ground”. Over the past year, the news has been full of stories where ham radio operators provided critical communications support during emergencies. From the hurricane response in Puerto Rico or up and down the coast of America in addition to the Nor’easter winter storms in the northeast states this past winter ham radio was there. During Hurricane Maria, CNN reported how Amateur Radio – commonly called “Ham radio” – was often the ONLY way people could communicate around or to that island nation. The amateur radio community deployed a special group of volunteer “hams” that traveled to Puerto Rico to help save lives and property. On the weekend of June 23rd and 24th, the public will have a chance to meet and talk with local ham radio operators and see for themselves what the Amateur Radio Service is about. Showing the newest capabilities using voice and data communications, hams from across the USA will be holding similar public demonstrations of emergency communications abilities.
This annual event, called "Field Day" is the highpoint of the week long "Amateur Radio Week" proclamation regularly issued by our Governor. Field Day is a friendly ‘contest’ for us and the only prizes are bragging rights on how many people we were able to talk to in 24 hours. More than 35,000 amateur radio operators across the country participated in last year's event making over 1.2 million contacts. Other groups, using only tents and emergency power supplies, will setup stations in parks, shopping malls, schools and back yards across the country. One of our slogans, "When all else fails", is more than just words to us as we prove we can communicate without the use of commercial or cell phone systems, internet or any other infrastructure that would be compromised in a crisis. There are approximately 15,246 hams in Indiana and 396 listed in Johnson County. Nationally there are more than 801,000 licensed Amateur Radio operators in the US, and over 3 million around the world.
Here in the Johnson County area we will hold our open house at the clubs radio room located at the Johnson County Prosecutors Office, 1 Caisson Dr, Franklin, IN. We invite the media and public to come see us Saturday 2pm to 8pm or Sunday from 9am to 2pm. Come and see for yourselves, this is not your grandfather's radio anymore. We’ll let you see or talk on the radio and if you’re interested, give you information to help you get your own FCC license before the next disaster strikes. See our Facebook page to follow the action that day at: http://www.facebook.com/MidStateARC/.
