Audrain County Emergency Commications Association Field Day in Mexico, Mo. Photo use granted by Audrain County Emergency Communications Association.
Amateur radio’s biggest yearly event will be happening this weekend across Missouri and the country.
The event is known as the American Radio Relay League’s Field Day where amateur radio operators make as many contacts as possible for 27 hours straight starting on Saturday and running through Sunday.
It is estimated around 31,000 amateur radio operators will participate in this weekend’s field day.
Kenny Fairchild, Treasurer of the Audrain County Emergency Communications Association in central Missouri, told Missourinet News this weekend gives them a chance to test out their equipment often, as they are crucial to setting up communication with agencies during tornadoes and other disasters.
It gets pretty diverse once you start thinking about it, what happens when there is a disaster and we’re here to kind of coordinate with the state and federal organizations to get generators in here or blankets or beds for the hospital,” said Fairchild. “And that’s kind of what we do. And then we also on a personal note, somebody might get a hold of and they go, oh, man, we haven’t heard from Grandma. How’s she doing? And we’ll try to contact that person.”
Fairchild said the amateur radio operators have portable equipment and if an incident like a tornado happens, they can go into that area and be set up fairly quickly.
“If an incident like Joplin or some of the tornadoes around where we’ve had some areas hit, we could go into that area and be set up fairly quickly” said Fairchild. People don’t realize what happens when the power goes out. Well, you don’t have Internet. You won’t have Wi-Fi, you won’t have heat cooling. We’re here to kind of coordinate with the state and federal organizations.”
This is the 92nd year for the American Radio Relay League’s Field Day.
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