Monroe County "hams" will join thousands of amateur radio operators who will show off their emergency capabilities this weekend.  During the past year, the news has been full of reports of ham radio operators providing critical communications during unexpected emergencies in towns across America.

During Hurricane Katrina, amateur radio - often called ham radio - was often the only way people could communicate, and hundreds of volunteer "hams" traveled south to save lives and property.
 
Amateur radio's people are often the first to provide rescuers with critical information and communications. On June 27 and 28 at Kefauver Park on Highway 411 in Madisonville, the public will have a chance to meet and talk with local ham radio operators and see for themselves what the Amateur Radio Service is all about. At this annual event, called Field Day, more than 30,000 amateur radio operators all across the USA will hold public demonstrations of emergency communications abilities. The field day hours are 2 p.m. Saturday until 2 p.m. Sunday.

Using only emergency power supplies, operators will construct emergency stations in parks, shopping malls, schools and fields around the country. Their slogan, "When All Else Fails, Ham Radio Works," is more than just words as they demonstrate how they can communicate without the use of public power, phone systems, Internet, or any other infrastructure that can fail or be compromised in a crisis. Ham volunteers provide emergency communications for thousands of state and local emergency response agencies, all for free.

The Monroe Amateur Radio Club invites everyone to join them at Kefauver Park and see for themselves that this is not your grandfather's radio anymore. See what modern amateur radio can do. The communications that ham radio people can quickly create have saved many lives when other systems were not available, failed or were overloaded.  Here in East Tennessee, and in other parts of the country, cell phone service is not available in many areas of our beautiful state and national parks.  Ham radio has often been the only way to summons help for victims of an accident.  And more than that, ham radio is just fun.

There are more than 650,000 licensed Amateur Radio operators in the U.S . and more than 2.5 million around the world. Come and see ham radio capabilities and learn how to get your own FCC radio license before the next emergency strikes.