Socorro HAM Operators To Take Part In ‘Field Day’

Mountain Mail Reports

Socorro's Amateur Radio operators will join thousands of others throughout the Western Hemisphere in a giant emergency-communications exercise on Saturday and Sunday, June 26-27. The Socorro Amateur Radio Association (SARA) and the Tech Amateur Radio Association (TARA) will set up and operate emergency radio stations in Socorro and Catron counties.
The public is invited to visit these operations. In Socorro, the "ham" operators will work at the County Annex Building, 198 Neel Avenue, and in Catron County, the station will operate from the Datil Well Campground. The operation runs from noon Saturday to noon Sunday. Once the emergency radio stations are set up, the operators will make as many two-way contacts as possible with other participating stations.
The annual preparedness exercise is called "Field Day," and is sponsored by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), the national association for Amateur Radio.
During Field Day, operators set up in local parks, at shopping malls, or even in their own backyards, and get on the air using generators or battery power. Field Day was designed to test operators' abilities to set up and operate portable stations under emergency conditions such as the loss of electricity and other infrastructure.
Far from fading in the age of cell phones and Internet, Amateur Radio has been growing in the U.S. and 2009 saw more than 30,000 new people became “hams.” The technical skills of hams also improved as almost 50 percent of American Amateur Radio operators now go beyond the entry-level FCC licensing requirements and pass the more difficult testing to earn higher class federal licenses.
In past months, many reports of ham radio operators providing critical communications in emergencies have been in the news. From Haiti to California, during floods, fires, earthquakes, tornadoes and other crises, Amateur Radio volunteers provide emergency communications for many rescue and recovery groups. Amateur Radio operators are often the first to report critical information to responders in the first hours of crisis situations. FEMA, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Weather Service, and local emergency management offices include Amateur Radio Emergency Service operators in their communications plans.
Field Day is a serious test of skill, but it also is a contest for fun and the largest "on-air" operating event each year. More than 35,000 Amateur Radio operators participated in last year's event.
"We hope that anyone interested in seeing what Amateur Radio is all about will come out to see our Field Day operations," said SARA President James Boswell.
Today there are more than 682,000 Amateur Radio operators in the United States and more than 2.5 million worldwide. For more information about amateur radio in Socorro County, see: http://www.socorroara.org/.

Socorro HAM Operators To Take Part In ‘Field Day’