Amateur Radio Field Day events planned at EOC June 26

The Putnam County Emergency Operations Center will host ARRL Field Day events on Saturday, June 26.

The local chapter of the Amateur Radio Relay League, PCAUXCOM VE Team, will conduct testing and demonstrations at the EOC, 1600 W. CR 225 South, as part of the single most popular on-the-air event conducted annually in the United States and Canada.

Amateur license testing and other field day events begin at 2 p.m., with activities at the EOC continuing until 9 p.m. ARRL Field Day will continue until 2 p.m. Sunday.

On the fourth weekend of June of each year, thousands of radio amateurs gather with their clubs, groups or simply with friends to operate from remote locations.

Field Day is a practice for emergencies, an informal contest and, most of all, fun. It is a time in which many aspects of amateur radio come together to highlight its many roles. While some will treat it as a contest, other groups use the opportunity to practice their emergency response capabilities. It is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate amateur radio to the organizations it might serve in an emergency, as well as to the general public.

The contest part is simply to contact as many other stations as possible and to learn to operate the radio gear in abnormal situations and less-than-optimal conditions.

Radio amateurs use these same skills when they help with events such as marathons and bike-a-thons, fundraisers such as walk-a-thons, celebrations such as parades and exhibits at fairs, malls and museums — these are all large, preplanned, non-emergency activities.

Despite the development of very complex, modern communications systems — or maybe because they ARE so complex — ham radio has been called into action again and again to provide communications in crises when it really matters. Amateur radio people (also called “hams”) are well known for our communications support in real disaster and post-disaster situations.

PCAUXCOM VE Team will be presenting a testing session for technician, general and amateur extra levels during the event.

Test takers should plan to bring their own masks, pencils and simple four-function calculators.

Additionally, Field Day 2021 logging and submission help is available for any ham wishing to have their own station field day scores applied to the WB9EOC Field Day team even though operation was performed at non-EOC location.

For testing details or logging and submission help, contact George Edenfield at kb9rzk@arrl.net at 721-1771.

Mask usage recommended will be recommend for all persons not fully vaccinated. Additional COVID-19 guidelines may in effect during this use of the EOC.

For more detail, visit www.facebook.com/pcauxcom for details.