Amateur Radio operators from the Tri-States Amateur Radio Club will be participating in a national amateur radio exercise, know as Summer Field Day, from 2 p.m. on Saturday until 1:59 p.m. on Sunday, June 28-29, at the Cedar Grove Community Center, in Walker County. The Community Center address is 5395 West Cove Road, Chickamauga, but is actually well south of the Chickamauga area, between Kensington and Mountain Cove Farms.
The Tri-States Amateur Radio Club’s (www.tristatesarc.com) 100-plus membership consist of amateur radio operators, also known as “Hams”, from the Northwest Georgia, Southeast Tennessee, and Northeast Alabama areas. TSARC members, along with Ham operators from across all of North America, participate in Field Day by establishing temporary ham radio stations, in public locations, to demonstrate their skill and service. Ham radio operators use these skills and their knowledge of radio signals, which reach beyond borders, to bring people together while providing essential communication in the service of communities.
The Summer Field Day event is free and open to the general public and everyone is encouraged to attend. There will be displays and demonstrations by various civic organizations and public service organizations. Several TSARC radio operators will have radio stations set up and operating inside the Community Center, using a variety of both analog and digital mode radios, numerous frequency bands and transmitter formats. The operators are more than happy to give demonstrations and answer any questions visitors may have. There will also be a wide array of different ham radio antennas that will be set up around the outside of the building. Ham Radio is a very diverse hobby with myriad ways of communicating with the world.
By far, the most popular activity at TSARC Summer Field Day is the free “Get-on-the-Air” station. This station will be provided by the LaFayette Middle School’s award-winning Rambler Radio Club. The GOTA station allows unlicensed members of the general public, especially school-aged children, to make real ham radio calls under the supervision of a control operator. If you have always wanted to try ham radio for yourself, or perhaps you have a child that has an interest in the hobby, this is the perfect opportunity to try it out, said officials.
ARRL Summer Field Day is the single, largest annual event in Amateur Radio. It was first organized in 1933 by the American Radio Relay League, the national association for Amateur Radio in the United States. During Field Day 2024, more than 31,000 hams participated from thousands of locations across North America. According to ARRL, there are more than 750,000 amateur radio licensees in the US, and an estimated 3 million worldwide.
Summer Field Day’s purpose is to highlight Amateur Radio’s ability to work reliably under any conditions, from almost any location, to create an independent, wireless communications network. Some amateur radio operators will also use radio stations set up in their homes, back yards or other locations to operate individually or as a group with families and neighbors. Many hams have portable radio communication capability that includes alternative energy sources such as generators, solar panels, and batteries to power their equipment.
This year's event is also noteworthy given that a particularly active hurricane season is predicted. Hams have a long history of serving our communities when storms or other disasters damage critical communication infrastructure, including cell towers. Ham radio functions completely independent of the internet and phone systems and a station can be set up almost anywhere in minutes. Hams can quickly raise a wire antenna in a tree or on a mast, connect it to a radio and power source, and communicate effectively with others. For example, during the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, amateur radio operators provided vital communications for hard-hit areas in western North Carolina, east Tennessee and portions of Georgia and South Carolina, where infrastructure for almost all other forms of communications was either totally destroyed of badly damaged.
Among the tenets of the Amateur Radio Service is developing and practicing skills in radio technology and radio communications, and even contributing to international goodwill. Hams range in age from as young as 9 to older than 100. Hams worldwide also donate the equivalent of millions of dollars per year in emergency and public service communications, tax-free. Today’s operators use traditional voice and Morse code as well as state-of-the-art digital modes to communicate with other Hams around the world.
The Amateur Radio Service has been around for a century. In that time, it’s grown into a worldwide community of licensed operators using the airwaves with every conceivable means of communications technology. Most Hams are just normal folks like you and me who enjoy learning and being able to transmit voice, data and pictures through the air to unusual places, both near and far, without depending on commercial systems. The Amateur Radio Service frequencies are the last remaining place in the usable radio spectrum where you, as an individual, can develop and experiment with wireless communications. Hams not only can make and modify their equipment but can create whole new ways to do things.