Woods Amateur Radio Club invites public to Field Day June 27-28

  • Published
  • By Michael Glennon, AEDC Engineering and Technical Management
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, TENN. --  The Woods Amateur Radio Club (ARC) at AEDC will participate in the upcoming Amateur Radio Field Day June 27-28 at Old Stone Fort, Manchester. The event is open to the public, who will have the opportunity to see an onsite demonstration and learn about the amateur radio hobby.

Woods ARC is comprised of past and present AEDC employees who meet at announced times at the Complex.

Since 1933, amateur radio operators across North America have established temporary radio stations in public locations during Field Day to showcase the science and skill of amateur radio. For over 100 years, amateur radio - sometimes called "ham radio" - has allowed people from all walks of life to experiment with electronics and communications techniques, as well as provide a free public service to their communities during a disaster, all without needing a cell phone or the internet.

Field Day demonstrates ham radio's ability to work reliably under any conditions from almost any location and create an independent communications network. More than 45,000 people from thousands of locations participated in Field Day in 2014.

"It's easy for anyone to pick up a computer or smartphone, connect to the Internet and communicate, with no knowledge of how the devices function or connect to each other," said Sean Kutzko of the American Radio Relay League, the national association for Amateur Radio. "But if there's an interruption of service or you're out of range of a cell tower, you have no way to communicate. "Ham radio" functions completely independent of the internet or cell phone infrastructure, can interface with tablets or smartphones, and can be set up almost anywhere in minutes. That's the beauty of amateur radio during a communications outage.

"Hams can literally throw a wire in a tree for an antenna, connect it to a battery-powered transmitter and communicate halfway around the world. Hams do this by using a layer of Earth's atmosphere as a sort of mirror for radio waves.

"In today's electronic do-it-yourself environment, ham radio remains one of the best ways for people to learn about electronics, physics, meteorology and numerous other scientific disciplines, and is a huge asset to any community during disasters if the standard communication infrastructure goes down."

Anyone may become a licensed amateur radio operator. There are more than 725,000 licensed hams in the United States, as young as five years old and as old as 100. And with clubs such as the Middle Tennessee Amateur Radio Society, Bedford County ARC or Short Mountain Repeater Club, it's easy for anybody to get involved right here in Middle Tennessee.

For more information about Woods ARC or Field Day, call 931-571-0502 or email kb4jhu@arrl.net or visit http://www.qsl.net/mtars/ and www.arrl.org/what-is-ham-radio.

-AEDC-