Highlands County ham radio operators take part in Field Day | Highlands News-Sun

Attendees had the opportunity to operate a ham radio and make a contact with anyone anywhere. There was also a station where they could try communicating in Morse code.

Every ham operator has a callsign after being a licensed ham radio operator by the Federal Communications Commission as a technician. There are three tiers of licensure: technician, general and amateur extra – more frequencies are granted in more advanced licenses.

“What we do is we practice our emergency procedures, and we turn it into fun by making it a contest,” Informant Jacqueline “KJ4BBC” Singleton said. “So, everybody in America, 48 states, are going to see how many contacts they can make during a 24-hour period working off the grid. We will not be plugged into electricity.”

She told a story from two years ago when she established communication with a ham radio operator who lived in the middle of “nowhereville” who had a heart attack. The ham radio operator’s wife turned on the radio and called for help.

Singleton’s son and a few others listening to the radio were able to get the man help in time to get him to the hospital.

“It’s a way of keeping in contact,” Singleton said. “It’s just a lot of fun. You get to meet all kinds of people of all walks of life. We try and help as much as we can.”

George “W4QJT” Sweatt brought out a 73-foot tower that was erected in the parking lot for Field Day. Its name was P.A.C. R.A.T. or Portable Antenna Communications Radio Antenna Tower. He constructed it himself alongside another ham operator in Okeechobee.

“Many of the people that are involved in the telecommunications industry are also amateur radio operators, so it kind of went hand-in-hand,” Sweatt said. “So I met a lot of people that way. That’s what got me involved in it. It was called a hobby, but to me it’s more than that.”

Alan “KB9CEO” Holmes recounted the time when he was in a hurricane shelter in Avon Park during Hurricane Milton last year for 30 hours for the emergency operations center. He’s one of the volunteer ham radio operators who manned the radio during emergencies.

“There were times that the director of the shelter, she couldn’t call out because the cell phones were down,” Holmes said. “They literally went down during the storm up to an hour at a time. Well, right there, my radio, we could communicate with emergency operations in Highlands County.”