Hopewell Fire Tower, French Creek State Park

1800 UTC Saturday and running through 2059 UTC Sunday
Google Maps link to Hopewell Fire Tower: https://goo.gl/maps/9V5rWoE7kn52
View the PAARC 2016 Field Day webpage for details (under Special Events)

For Immediate Release – June 21, 2016,  Ed McCoy – N3WXW

Amateur Radio Field Day Demonstrates Science, Skill, and Service

ARRL Field Day is the most popular on-the-air event held annually in the US and Canada. On the fourth weekend of June, more than 35,000 radio amateurs gather with their clubs, groups or simply with friends to operate from remote locations. All are welcome to visit the PAARC Field Day location and get on the air with us! Our special event call sign is W3T.

Members of the Pottstown Area Amateur Radio Club will be participating in the national Amateur Radio Field Day exercise, June 25 – 26 at the French Creek State Park’s Hopewell Fire Tower.  Since 1933, ham radio operators across North America have established temporary ham radio stations in public locations during Field Day to showcase the science and skill of Amateur Radio. This event is open to the public and all are encouraged to attend.

For over 100 years, Amateur Radio — sometimes called ham radio — has allowed people from all walks of life to experiment with electronics and communications techniques, as well as provide a free public service to their communities during a disaster, all without needing a cell phone or the Internet. Field Day demonstrates ham radio’s ability to work reliably under any conditions from almost any location and create an independent communications network. Over 35,000 people from thousands of locations participated in Field Day in 2015.

“It’s easy for anyone to pick up a computer or smartphone, connect to the Internet and communicate, with no knowledge of how the devices function or connect to each other,” said Sean Kutzko of the American Radio Relay League, the national association for Amateur Radio. “But if there’s an interruption of service or you’re out of range of a cell tower, you have no way to communicate. Ham radio functions completely independent of the Internet or cell phone infrastructure, can interface with tablets or smartphones, and can be set up almost anywhere in minutes. That’s the beauty of Amateur Radio during a communications outage.”

“Hams can literally throw a wire in a tree for an antenna, connect it to a battery-powered transmitter and communicate halfway around the world,” Kutzko added. “Hams do this by using a layer of Earth’s atmosphere as a sort of mirror for radio waves. In today’s electronic do-it-yourself (DIY) environment, ham radio remains one of the best ways for people to learn about electronics, physics, meteorology, and numerous other scientific disciplines, and is a huge asset to any community during disasters if the standard communication infrastructure goes down.”

Anyone may become a licensed Amateur Radio operator. There are over 725,000 licensed hams in the United States, as young as 5 and as old as 100. And with clubs such as Pottstown Area Amateur Radio Club, it’s easy for anybody to get involved in the Pottstown, PA area. For more information about Field Day, contact Ed McCoy N3WXW@arrl.net, 610 469 9737 or visit www.arrl.org/what-is-ham-radio.

For a map, go to http://www.arrl.org/field-day-locator enter W3T as the call sign to search by name or in the callsign box.