Annual field day prepares radio amateurs to serve
SUN PHOTO BY GREG MARTIN, gmartin@sun-herald.com
Barry Fluxe uses a device called a "bug" to transmit messages in Morse code during the Peace River Amateur Radio Association's annual "field day" exercise in a clubhouse in Tropical Gulf Acres Saturday. The event continues through 2 p.m. today at 28245 Pasadena Drive.
SUN PHOTO BY GREG MARTIN
Julian Shaw, 15, of Cape Coral, works with Ken Johnson of the Peace River Amateur Radio Association to log contacts during a Field Day exercise Saturday south of Punta Gorda. Shaw is learning to operate a radio to earn a merit badge.
SUN PHOTO BY GREG MARTIN
Amateur radio operators could relay messages during disasters on handheld radios like the one Randy Summey demonstrates here, during an exercise Saturday at the Tropical Gulf Acres clubhouse.
TROPICAL GULF ACRES — A chemical bomb goes off. It knocks down power lines. Cellphone systems quickly become jammed. And Fawcett Memorial Hospital in Port Charlotte needs to summon reinforcements from its sister hospital in Englewood.
Not to worry. There are at least 67 amateur radio operators in the Peace River Amateur Radio Association who can flip up an antenna on a portable radio station at one hospital and call a fellow operator at the other.
