PORT TOWNSEND — The Jefferson County Amateur Radio Club will take part in a national field day Saturday.
The event, which will be open to the public, will start at 11 a.m. Saturday and run until 11 a.m. Sunday.
During the field day, the club will try to make contact with as many operators from around the country as they can, said Robin Amundson, the amateur radio clubs (JCARC) board treasurer.
The club will have four radios set up in the overflow parking lot at the Fort Worden campground: One for Morse code, one for digital messages and two for transmitting and receiving voice, said Larry Morrell, the club’s public information officer.
One of the two radios set up for voice will be open for anyone to use, Morrell said. With a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) licensed operator present, anyone can step up and broadcast, he said.
“Our weekend is a tradition in ham radio, in which clubs and individual hams across the country come out trying to set up portable radio stations,” Amundson said.
Amateur radio enthusiasts refer to themselves as hams, Amundson explained.
The idea for the event is to have fun, to promote ham radio, to increase preparedness for disasters and emergencies, and to get as many new operators experience on the radio as is possible, Amundson said.
The club also hopes to generate interest from the public in amateur radio and gaining licensure, Amundson added.
Amundson said the club would host two very highly experienced operators at the event, Rusty Epps and Rich Stempien.
“(Epps) is a world famous ham radio operator,” Amundson said. “They’re going to come Saturday and assist new operators in learning good field day operating technique, as well as, they will get on the air to make contacts for us.”
Morrell, an electrical engineer, got his amateur radio license in 2017.
“The reason I decided to get my ham license was because of the emergency prep contributions that ham radio makes to the community,” he said.
The remoteness of the Olympic Peninsula would mean isolation in the case of catastrophic events, Morrell said.
Efforts to prepare for a wildfire or a major earthquake likely to happen over the next several decades have been significant, Morrell said.
“Ham radio can play an integral part,” Morrell said.
Flooding from Hurricane Helene caused serious disruptions in communications in the western counties of North Carolina, Morrell said.
They had no cell phones, no infrastructure, no internet, but ham radio worked, he added.
“For several days, maybe the first week, that was the only communication some of those counties had to call for help and to let people know where you can land a helicopter, who needs water bottles, who’s out of food,” Morrell said.
Something similar could happen on the Peninsula, Morrell said.
“When stuff hits the fan, knowing who needs help and where they can get it from, that speaks to me,” Morrell said.
In addition to being a part of the local club, Morrell is a member of Volunteer Emergency Communicators (VECOM).
“VECOM actually works in concert with (the Jefferson County Department of Emergency Management),” Morrell said. “In the event that we need alternate communication, we have formal processes and procedures and paperwork and FEMA training, so that we can engage and transmit official communication, in the event that the normal line between the county and the state is interrupted.”
VECOM will have a presence at Jefferson County’s Preparedness Day on Saturday, Morrell said.
Morrell said the amateur club has about 60 members and VECOM has about 25. There’s a lot of overlap between the two, he added.
“My setup, I’ve got several handhelds, a variety of batteries, I could go for several days without needing power,” Morrell said. “The handhelds are low power, and they’re designed to communicate 10, 15, 20 miles, depending on the terrain.”
With adapters, handhelds can be modified with larger antennas, Morrell said. Those frequencies can extend their reach through repeaters, he added.
“You can go a long way,” he said. “We can talk to people on the east side of Seattle, we can talk to people in Bellingham on our handheld. You can go a long way, even with low power, because there’s a very robust repeater network.”
The repeaters have battery backups and will probably last a couple of days, Morrell said.
In his backyard, Morrell has about a 25-foot-tall mast. His antennae runs from his mast across his backyard to his shed, where he has his radio, he said.
“That little antennae is 65 feet long,” he said. “From that antennae and my radio, which runs up to 100 watts, I can talk to people really all over the country, all over North America and occasionally people from Japan.”
At the field day, contact may be made with people as far away as Europe, Morrell said.
While not really a contest, the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), which puts on the national event, does have a way to register points for completing different objectives, Amundson said.
In addition to gaining points for contacts made across Morse, digital and voice modes, the club will gain points for receiving publicity, sending an email to ARRL without wifi or cell service, seeing the attendance of a local politician, plus other categories, Amundson said.
Port Townsend Mayor David Faber has pledged to attend the event at some point on Saturday, Amundson said.
To learn more about JCARC, visit https://jcarcwa.org.
To learn more about VECOM, visit https://jeffersoncountyares.wordpress.com.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@sequimgazette.com.
