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Ham Radio Demo at Cherry Creek State Park

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Contributed by: RICHARD SCHNEIDER on 6/27/2008

Ham Radio Operators "Show Off" For Denver Area Residents
Public Demonstration of Emergency Communications June 28 - 29

DENVER - Thousands of Ham Radio operators will be showing off their emergency capabilities this weekend, including one in southeast Denver's Cherry Creek State Park.

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 and other events world-wide. 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, ham radio operators are often the first to provide critical information and communications.

On the weekend of June 28 - 29, during Amateur Radio's annual Field Day event, the public will have a chance to meet and talk with these ham radio operators and see for themselves what the Amateur Radio Service is about. Showing the newest digital and satellite capabilities, voice communications and Morse code, hams from across the USA will be holding public demonstrations of emergency communications abilities.

The Colorado QRP Club, a Denver-based national Amateur Radio club, is sponsoring two Field Day sites, one in Cherry Creek State Park at the Arapahoe campsite in the group camping area, and one in the foothills southwest of Denver on Rampart Range Road in Pike National Forest.

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 back yards around the country.

Their slogan, "Ham radio works when other systems don't! " 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 30,000 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 Pete Inskeep, NO2D, president of the Colorado QRP Club. "The communications networks that ham radio people can quickly create have saved many lives in the past months when other systems failed or were overloaded."

The club will be "on the air" from Noon on Saturday, June 28, until Noon Sunday, June 29 at the Cherry Creek State Park site. The public is welcome to stop by, find out about Amateur Radio and even get on the air. We put plenty of kids on the year in 2007, and they got to talk to Hams all around North America.

If you join us in the park and need more directions, please call Dick Schneider, AB0CD, at 303-601-8932 anytime during the weekend.

There are 650,000 Amateur Radio licensees in the US, and more than 2.5 million around the world.

To learn more about Amateur Radio, go to www.cqc.org or www.emergency-radio.org.

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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

RICHARD SCHNEIDER

DENVER , CO

RICHARD SCHNEIDER has posted 30 stories and 0 comments since joining on 8/23/2007. RICHARD SCHNEIDER 's average story rating is 5.

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