Yellowstone Radio Club camps at ZooMontana

BILLINGS — Members of the Yellowstone Radio Club gathered at ZooMontana, 2100 Shiloh Road, from noon Saturday to noon Sunday to participate in Field Day and teach others about the importance of radio. Field Day is an annual event where people from all over the world communicate with each other for 24 hours using amateur radio.

Amateur radio uses radio waves to send messages.

“Basically, we’re going to send a signal through the air. It’s going to bounce off certain parts of the atmosphere and come back down. And we’re going to communicate with someone on the other end,” said John McCabe, the club’s president.

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The group had set up many stations for different types of radio communication, such as digital, telephone, or Morse code. Anyone was welcome to join in and learn about radios. Field Day is a national event, so groups received points based on how many radio contacts they were able to make with others.

“The more stations you talk to on the air, the more points you get, and the more points you get, the more bragging rights you have that you beat all the other clubs in the state of Montana. It’s always fun,” joked Ron Glass, a member of the club that communicates via digital radio.

The group also stressed the importance of radio in disaster situations when cell towers may not be available and reliable communications are required.

“The goal is to go out into the field with emergency power in adverse conditions and operate the radios,” Glass said. “It’s good practice for emergencies we’re called to every year to assist the city, county or other service assignments.”

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The technology may seem old-fashioned, but it is actually more complicated than you would expect.

“This is basically chat over the radio. So instead of using the internet, WiFi or your cell phone, we chat. And I send CQ, which means I call whoever I want to talk to,” Glass explained. “And right now I get a call from N1MG. He’s in Minnesota. I can tell who it’s from by the grid call. And so his computer communicates with my computer and they exchange signal reports. And if all the information is exchanged perfectly, it gets added to the logbook and I get two points for that contact.”

Each operator controlled a different station. Every symbol on their screens or every beep in the air contained a message. As soon as noon struck, radios around the world began sending signals like mad. Within minutes, the digital group had made contacts all over the United States and even around the world, including countries like Hungary and Spain, and those working with Morse code were able to make ten contacts within the first 30 minutes.

“They do the same thing, but in Morse code. So we get more points if we do it in Morse code than if we do it by voice, because not as many people use Morse code anymore,” explained Keith Regli, a member of the club.

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Each member of the group had a different background or reason for being interested in amateur radio. For McCabe, it was a reason to get in touch with his father.

“For me, radio was something I knew from my father. His call sign, K79KC, was given to him sometime around 1948. He died a few years ago, but before that I studied like crazy and got my license,” McCabe said. “So I’m the second person to be allowed to use K79KC on the air.”

The day turned into an eventful 24 hours and it was not only about making as many contacts as possible, but also about building connections with people all over the world who have similar interests.

“You make friends out there. And you don’t even know the person. And you’ll never see them again for the rest of your life. You’ll never see them again at all. You won’t know who they are for the rest of your life. But you know the call sign. You know what the guy does. You know what he did on vacation last year. That’s just the way it is,” McCabe said.