Ham radio operators are on the same wavelength as first responders. Brigantine (NJ) has long been the home base to the Shore Points Amateur Radio Club, or SPARC, a group of what are commonly called ham radio operators, who communicate with others around the world via radio, and are sometimes asked to assist first responders in emergency situations. SPARC’s roots date back to 1974 when its home base was in Pleasantville and the club was initially called RAM, or Radio Amateurs Menagerie. Its membership has fluctuated in size over the decades, at one time approaching roughly 200 South Jersey hams, who are required to secure Federal Communications Commission licensing through a series of tests and levels of proficiency. With each progressive level, ranging from novice through amateur extra, more radio frequencies become available for use to the licensed operators.
Radio club tunes in to eclipse for science. The Aug. 21 solar eclipse across the United States promises to provide not only a rare visual experience for Americans, but also a rare listening experience for amateur radio operators interested in how the eclipse might affect radio waves in the atmosphere. And members of the Amateur Radio Club at Missouri S&T plan to tune in to the eclipse as part of a global research project.
“During the solar eclipse there will be a worldwide experiment using amateur radio,” says Missouri S&T electrical engineering student Aaron Boots of Kansas City, Missouri. Boots is president of the university’s Amateur Radio Club, W0EEE. He says the eclipse is expected to cause “dramatic changes” in the ionosphere – that part of the atmosphere where neutral atoms and molecules become ionized, or electrically charged, by solar and cosmic radiation. The eclipse offers amateur radio operators a chance to learn about how radio waves propagate under such conditions.
Local ham radio operators step up in good times and bad. ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — When wildfires, floods, tornadoes and terrorist events disrupt cellphone communication systems at the moment they are most needed, that’s when a more than 100-year-old technology still holds its own.
Here in New Mexico, radio hams play a vital role in battles against wildfires, said Ed James, section manager for the Amateur Radio Relay League (sic), the state branch of the national association for amateur radio.
His group has 1,400 members. Many of them volunteer with the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES), groups of trained radio operators who work with county emergency management organizations, local hospitals, the Red Cross or local sheriff’s departments.
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