Field Day?

Just what is "Field Day?" Occurring annually the fourth weekend in June, Field Day is a demonstration of emergency communications' capability by amateur radio operators throughout the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It is the climax of the week long "Amateur Radio Week" sponsored by the American Radio Relay League, a national association for Amateur Radio operators. This year over 3000 clubs took to the outdoors for Field Day including many groups and clubs in Colorado.

Over the past year, the news has been full of reports of ham radio operators providing critical communications in emergencies including the California wildfires, Oregon and Michigan storms, tornadoes, the earthquake in China and other events worldwide. Often "Ham radio" was the ONLY way people could communicate. Hundreds of volunteer "hams" traveled to the emergency area to save lives and property. When trouble is brewing, ham radio operators are often the first to provide critical communications.

The 285 TechConnect Radio Club, a local Conifer/Bailey club, hosted its Field Day on Richmond Hill near Conifer. Using only battery, gas generator, or solar power!, we constructed our emergency station. Amateur Radio's slogan, "Ham radio works when other systems don't!," is more than just words as we demonstrated sending messages in many forms without the use of phone systems, Internet or any other infrastructure that can be compromised in a crisis.

During our 24 hours of operation, we made over 300contacts. A contact means we "spoke" with another ham radio operator using voice communication, computer generated code, or sent by hand using Morse code. Eleven local hams, including our newest ham operator, a 10-year-old boy, helped set up and operate the station. Nine guests visited our site for an opportunity to see ham radio in action and to learn more about this fascinating hobby.