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Local Emergency Communications Drill This Weekend

By MSC News

06/24/2016

(MSC News)-- The National Association for Amateur Radio will hold its annual emergency communications drill, called Field Day, this weekend.

Local ham operators from Hiawatha and Falls City will join more than 35,000 other ham operators throughout North America, and territories in the Pacific to practice their emergency communication skills. The purpose of the drill is to demonstrate that in an emergency, amateur radio operators can set up quickly and pass along critical messages and information without the use of local utility power for at least 24-hours.

Locally, amateur radio operators from Falls City, Hiawatha and Horton will set up on the west side of the Hiawatha Wal-Mart parking lot. Using only 5-watts of output power, which is about the same power as a flashlight, they will exchange messages with other ham radio stations for 24-hours beginning at 1:00 Saturday afternoon until 1:00 Sunday afternoon.

While the drill has a serious side, for the amateur radio operators there is also a fun, competitive side to it. Stations compete for the honor of contacting the most stations in their operating category, and also enjoy showing off their communication skills to each other and to the public.

The public is welcome to come by and even get on the air with the ham operators.

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