Ham Operators Reach Distant Ears Testing Emergency Capabilities

COURT HOUSE – From the air they breathed came sounds from afar, fetched from high in the ionosphere by thin wires strung among trees. Energy went into radio transceivers powered by solar panels and emergency generators. From out of speakers came crackly voices from Puerto Rico, Virginia, and California and South Carolina.
This is what ham radio operators, members of Cape May County Amateur Radio Club, live for; it is what they do in their spare time. This is how they could help their community in times of natural disaster when all other means of communication are silent.
Protected from bugs in screen tents, ham operators gathered June 28-29 at Cape May County 4-H Fairground on Court House-South Dennis Road to join a North American “field day” event. They joined thousands of peers in the U.S. and Canada to exercise their hobby as a real-life test of what could be done in an emergency. The Cape May County Office of Emergency Management’s van was present with the radio operators.
While it was a “contest” of sorts, to see how many stations could be contacted in that weekend window, there was no “game” atmosphere among operators who prefer to be addressed by the radio call signs. Hunched over radios, they were all business.
John Armbruster (N2WSY), club vice president, pointed to the solar-powered radio where Bob D’Imperio (N4XAT), the club’s GOTA coach (that means Get on the Air), was instructing Stacy Supplee (KD2GGB) the correct procedure when making contact with distant stations. Watching them was club historian John Barbieri (K2JGB).
The contacts were made in voice, since there is no longer a requirement that Morse code be learned by ham operators.
Purists in the pastime, however, like Al Maslin (N3EA) and Ron Bockhorn (KB2KEI), sat in a separate tent listening to a radio that produced humble Morse dots and dashes. That radio was powered by a Honda gasoline-powered generator.
Maslin worked an electronic key, which bore little resemblance to an old military-style code key that sent dots and dashes to battlegrounds and fleets on high seas around the globe.
The plastic “paddle” sent his hand motions into code that was heard, he said, by similar receivers in South Carolina, Arizona and even Belgium, but that was before the official start of the North American field day, and, as such, did not count.
In another tent sat Robert Pantazes (W2ARP) patiently and repeatedly calling a ham in Puerto Rico. His radio tuned to a high-frequency was also powered by a gasoline-powered Honda generator. Pantazes listened as that station replied to a caller in Illinois and elsewhere. Finally the radio waves met, success was his. Pantazes made contact and the Puerto Rican operator confirmed that fact; sweet satisfaction, then on to another call.
Armbruster estimated there were some 35 scattered around the fairgrounds. Some operators stayed just a few hours while others planned to remain through the night. When darkness prevails the atmosphere changes and radio waves travel farther than in daytime. That unseen conveyor of radio waves hangs miles above their heads.
In a release announcing the event, Freeholder Director Gerald Thornton stated, “The news is full of reports of ham radio operators providing critical communications during unexpected emergencies in towns across America including winter storms, tornadoes and other events. It is no different here in Cape May County where the ham community provides us with much needed support during emergencies.”
The Amateur Radio Community of Cape May County is a communications backup for emergencies in the County. Martin Pagliughi, Emergency Management Coordinator for Cape May County added, “The radios are portable and can be used at any location. In Cape May County there are approximately a hundred volunteers in the ham radio community that are available to help when emergencies occur.”
More than 35,000 amateur radio operators across the country participated in the “Field Day,” sponsored by the Amateur Radio Relay League, the national association for amateur radio. Using only emergency power supplies, ham operators constructed emergency stations in parks, shopping malls, schools and backyards around North America.