What may have looked like thousands of ham radio operators initiating communications during a post-disaster scene is actually Amateur Radio Field Day 2014, a two-day event that had more than 35,000 hams from across the U.S. making contact with other people from all around the globe.
Amateur radio operators from different locales came together to keep the airwaves busy starting 2 p.m. EDT on Saturday and ending at the same time the next day in what is known to be the biggest annual ham radio event for amateurs. The American Radio Relay League organizes the event as an exercise in disaster preparedness by training amateur radio operators to go into amateur bands and operate their devices at less than optimal conditions.
In Maine, for instance, members of the Wireless Society of Southern Main took to the Wassamki Springs campground in Scarborough to simulate emergency conditions and test their operator skills. Sixty-eight ham operators set up their gear, which include generators, solar power, batteries and other alternative sources of electricity and spent Saturday night making contact with other people using their ham radios. A similar scene could be seen on the Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds in Indiana and in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, members of the Granite State Amateur Radio Station participated in emergency response exercises at the Elliot Hospital and the Catholic Medical Center.
Amateur ham radio operators acquire their license from the Federal Communications Commission, but unlike commercial radio stations, they are not allowed to use their skills for financial gain. Mostly, ham radios are needed for emergency communications during wildfires, earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, blackouts and other natural disasters when complex communications systems such as cellphone networks and the Internet crash.
The National Weather System, in particular, continuously relies on reports coming in from ham radio operators about storms and other local weather conditions. During the September 11 terrorist bombings of 2001 and the ravage of hurricane Katrina, for example, ham radio operators played a vital part in providing communications.
"Often times the cell phones are the first things to go down and commercial power isn't available," explains Jim Walter, a Field Day participant in Elkhart County. "It's just a good operating event for people to get out and do something out of the ordinary."
Ham radio is a niche in itself, but most operators also have their own interests. Some communicate solely via Morse code. Others use traditional voice radios, and others still prefer to communicate digitally using radios connected to their computers. But one thing remains the same for most operators: they like talking to other hams living in different places on Earth. Some have even made contact with astronauts at the International Space Station.
"Look where the world is going now. Everybody has one of these," says Dan Rabinovitz of the Skyview Radio Society of Pennsylvania, holding a cellphone. "Of course, for this, people pay $100 per month. I can talk to people all over the world for free on the radio."
