When disaster strikes, ham radio provides the most reliable communication networks in the first critical hours.
On Saturday and Sunday, the public will have a chance to meet and talk with members of the Culver City Amateur Radio Emergency Service and see what it is about.
Amateur radio has proven to be the one consistent service that does not fail. 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,” Allen Pitts of the Amateur Radio Relay League.
Culver City’s Field Day will be held at Fire Station 1, 9600 Culver Blvd., in the back parking lot. Visitors are welcome from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday. (Although the event runs for a full 24 hours, the Fire Dept. gates must be closed after 9 p.m.) \
Visitors are welcome on Sunday, from 9 a.m. until 11.
Ham radio operators across the USA will be holding public demonstrations of emergency communications abilities.
This annual event, called “Field Day” is sponsored by 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.
The Culver City Amateur Radio Emergency Service (CC-ARES, Culver City’s ham radio operators) works in conjunction with the Fire Dept. to ensure that there never will be a communications blackout in Culver City.
They meet on air every Sunday night to check in and test their equipment.
Visitors will have the opportunity to get on the air and make contacts around the country via ham radio.
Amateur radio is growing in the U.S. There are now 700,000 amateur radio licensees in the country, and 2.5 million around the world.
Through the Amateur Radio Emergency Services program, ham volunteers provide both emergency communications for thousands of state and local emergency response agencies and non-emergency community services, too, all for free.
Marty Hente, president of Culver City Amateur Radio Emergency Service (CCARES), may be contacted at ccares@ccares.net. Also, see www.ccares.net
