Radio club’s annual Field Day June 28-29
MILO — Who you going to call, the Piscataquis Amateur Radio Club (PARC). PARC is Piscataquis County’s only ham radio club. The club boasts a membership of around 50 radio enthusiasts from all over
Piscataquis County and even adjoining counties such as Penobscot and Somerset.
Despite the Internet, cell phones, email and modern communications, every year whole regions find themselves in the dark. Tornadoes, fires, storms, ice and even the occasional cutting of fiber optic cables leave people without the means to communicate. In these cases, the one consistent service that has never failed has been amateur radio. These radio operators, often called “hams”, provide backup communications for everything from the American Red Cross to FEMA and even for the International Space Station.
PARC hams will join with thousands of other amateur radio operators showing their emergency communications capabilities during the June 28-29 weekend. For a number of years now, PARC has provided emergency/safety communications for the Dover-Foxcroft Kiwanis Piscataquis River Race in April. The ham club is recognized for its service to the Kiwanis for their service on the back of the race T-shirts each year.
Over the past year, the news has been full of reports of ham radio operators providing critical communications during unexpected emergencies in towns across America including the California wildfires, winter storms, tornadoes and other events. When trouble is brewing, amateur radio operators are often the first to provide rescuers with critical information and communications. On the weekend of June 28-29, the public will have a chance to meet and talk with PARC ham radio operators and see for themselves what the amateur radio service is about as hams across the U.S. will be holding public demonstrations of emergency communications abilities.
This annual event, called 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 backyards around the country. Their slogan “When All Else Fails, Ham Radio Works” 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 35,000 amateur radio operators across the country participated in last year’s event.
“The fastest way to turn a crisis into a total disaster is to lose communications,” said Allen Pitts of the ARRL. “From the earthquake and tsunami in Japan to tornadoes in Missouri, ham radio provided the most reliable communication networks in the first critical hours of the events. Because ham radios are not dependent on the Internet, cell towers or other infrastructure, they work when nothing else is available. We need nothing between us but air.”
PARC will be demonstrating amateur radio at the Piscataquis County Emergency Management Agency Emergency Operations bunker on Sargent Hill Drive in Milo between 2 p.m. Saturday, June 28 and Sunday, June 29 at 2 p.m. They invite the public to come and see ham radio’s new capabilities and learn how to get their own FCC radio license before the next disaster strikes.
Piscataquis County’s ARES team provided five radio operators in a mutual aid request from Penobscot Count ARES during the recent full scale BIA disaster exercise held May 31. ARES operators provided simulated critical tactical communications between the airport and area hospitals during the simulated disaster. The ARES operators are part of the PARC ARES committee.
For additional information contact George Dean, WA1JMM and Piscataquis Amateur Radio Club Field Day coordinator and American Radio Relay League Amateur Radio Emergency Service emergency coordinator at wa1jmm@roadrunner.com or 441-–6112.
See also on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/parcradio and the Piscataquis Amateur Radio Club website http://www.k1pq.org.