News
Redmond ARES Field Day, June 25 2011
From 11:00 AM to dusk on Saturday June 25, 2011, amateur radio operators from the City of Redmond’s Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) group and Microsoft’s MicroHams amateur radio club will gather to set up radio communications equipment at Redmond’s Idylwood Park, 3650 W. Lake Sammamish Parkway NE, and test their communications capabilities during a simulated emergency exercise.
The exercise is part of a nationwide Field Day emergency preparedness activity, and is designed to test the skills of amateur radio operators, or hams, in setting up and operating radio communications equipment in situations where electrical power is limited or unavailable. The idea is to simulate the conditions that can occur during an earthquake, flood, or other emergency, including man-made disasters.
The event is open to the public, and the hams will have a “Get on the Air” (GOTA) station available for the general public to operate, under the supervision of licensed radio operators, to make contact with hams from other areas of the world.
Today there are more than 680,000 Amateur Radio operators in the United States and more than 2.5 million worldwide. To find out how to get started in this exciting hobby and whom to contact in your area, call or write the American Radio Relay League, 225 Main St, Newington, CT 06111; toll-free 800 32 NEW HAM. Or you can visit ARRL on the Web at http://www.arrl.org.
For a look at last year's field day, see Field Day 2010 Highlights.