Ellis County, Texas June 17, 2010 – The Ellis County Amateur Radio Club will be demonstrating their communications capabilities as part of the amateur radio community’s annual “Field Day.” This event will be held June 26-27 at Mott Park on Lake Bardwell.

Ellis County “hams” will join with thousands of Amateur Radio operators across the world who will be showing off their emergency capabilities this weekend.

The public is invited to come and see ham radio’s new capabilities, meet and talk with local ham radio operators to see the services Amateur Radio Service, and learn how to get their own FCC radio license before the next disaster strikes.

“Field Day” allow the radio club the opportunity to showing the newest digital and satellite capabilities, voice communications and even historical Morse code by holding public demonstrations of emergency communications abilities.

Over the past year, the news has been full of reports of ham radio operators providing critical communications during unexpected emergencies in towns across America including the California wildfires, winter storms, tornadoes and other events worldwide.

“Field Day” is the climax of the week long “Amateur Radio Week” sponsored by the ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio. Using only emergency power supplies, ham operators will construct emergency stations in parks, shopping malls, schools and backyards around the country. Their slogan, "When All Else Fails, Ham Radio Works” is more than just words to the hams as they prove they can send messages in many forms without the use of phone systems, internet or any other infrastructure that can be compromised in a crisis. More than 35,000 amateur radio operators across the country participated in last year’s event.

During Hurricane Katrina, Amateur Radio, often called “Ham Radio”, was often the ONLY way people could communicate. Hundreds of volunteer “hams” traveled south to save lives and property. When trouble is brewing, Amateur Radio’s people are often the first to provide rescuers with critical information and communications.

We hope that people will come and see for themselves, this is not your grandfather’s radio anymore," said Allen Pitts, W1AGP, of the ARRL. "The communications that ham radio people can quickly create have saved many lives when other systems failed or were overloaded. And besides that – it’s fun!”

There are over 650,000 Amateur Radio licensees in the US, and more than 2.5 million around the world. Through the ARRL’s Amateur Radio Emergency Services program, ham volunteers provide emergency communications for thousands of state and local emergency response agencies, all for free.

To learn more about Amateur Radio, go to www.emergency-radio.org or www.wd5ddh.org. The public is most cordially invited to come, meet and talk with the hams. See what modern Amateur Radio can do. They can even help you get on the air!