Those people and antennas might just save lives one day and the men and women manning them worked Saturday and Sunday to make sure the Culpeper community will be able to communicate with the outside world even in the wake of the worst natural or man-made disasters.
All across the United States, amateur (ham) radio operators, individually or in groups such as the Culpeper Amateur Radio Association, Saturday set up emergency antennas in unlikely places and began communicating with one another in simulated emergency conditions.
“The whole purpose of this field day is to demonstrate to the [federal and state] agencies that we can go anywhere, set up and stay in touch with each other,” said Richard Becker, the group’s president.
The exercise began Saturday morning with about 20 people bringing in and setting up a radio base at the somewhat remote park, which is about six miles from the town of Culpeper (just north of the hamlet of Stevensburg).
Using gas generators and WiFi provided by a local supplier, the operators, mostly retired state and federal government employees, had just hours to establish a base and be able to transmit and receive messages from 2 p.m. Saturday until 2 p.m. Sunday.
The exercise was coordinated by the Amateur Radio Relay League which works with Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“If there was a major natural emergency we might be the only connection with the outside world,” said Quinton Laster, a retired Virginia State Police radio expert who helped organize the club back in the late 1970s.
The Culpeper group never has been called upon to provide emergency communication, but ham radio operators next door in Madison were key in communicating with authorities during that county’s monstrous flood, which occurred 20 years ago this week.
“All across the country amateur radio operators will be in contact with one another for 24 hours,” Laster said. “Working day and night, we’ll log every contact.”
While the group was testing its equipment, the first contact, from a New Jersey operator, came over the radio. During a normal 24-hour field day period, about 2,500 such contacts will be made and noted.
“We’ve been having these field days on and off since the club was formed,” said Laster, who noted that although some of the technology has changed over the past 40 years, the purpose of the exercise–emergency communication–has remained the group’s goal.
Some members remained at the camp (which has two mobile communications rooms) all night long.
At 2 p.m. Sunday the calls ceased and the antennas, computers, transmitters and other radio essentials were taken down and stored until some disaster occurs and makes emergency amateur radio communication the only way to contact the outside world.
Members of the Culpeper Amateur Radio Association hope that will never happen but if it does they will be ready.
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