The Portage County Amateur Radio Service Club hosts an annual Field Day

Even in a new age of technology, the amateur radio service continues to evolve to stay on the cutting edge. The age of amateur radio continues to remain popular as the Portage County Amateur Radio Service Club, an organization of amateur radio operators, held its annual Field Day at Freedom Township Community Park last Saturday afternoon.

“We have a lot of fun with amateur radio,” media chairman Tom Parkinson told The Weekly Villager. “It’s not just about making radio, there’s a lot more going on.”

Since 2006, the PCARS club has hosted a 24-hour Field Day event where radio operators could set up their radios and antennas and transmit on 15 different bandwidths. Residents from neighboring Northeast Ohio counties, including Summit, Portage, Trumbull, Mahoning and Cuyahoga County, were invited to the event. In addition to having the opportunity to transmit for 24 hours from Freedom Township Community Park, participants were able to pitch tents or sleep in their cars during the event when they took a break.

According to Parkinson, Field Day used to be held in Ravenna, but became such a popular attraction that there was no longer enough room for all the radio operators, so it was moved to Freedom Township Community Park.

Participating radio operators belonged to one of three established categories: Technician, General, or Amateur Extra. To achieve either status, a person had to take a standardized test and if they answered 75% of the questions correctly, they passed. There was no age requirement to take these tests, as even children could apply for a radio operator’s license.

The PCARS club has been in existence for 18 years and has grown considerably, and today has a total membership of about 190 people. About 50 to 60 people attend the monthly meetings at the local headquarters in Ravenna.

Radio operators who came to Field Day typically installed their own antennas and radio stations and signed in with their personal call sign to contact other radio operators at home and abroad. Each radio operator used one of three different wavelengths: sideband, Morse code, or digital.

“Amateur radio has a number of different bands and they operate by meter,” Parkinson said. “We have people on 80, 40, 20, 15, 10, 6 and 2 meters.”

Some operators used a simple radio with an antenna to make calls, while others brought trailers that housed all the radio equipment and built large antennas that connected them to a band. The normal time spent on the channels was two to four hours before an operator decided to take a break.

In addition, some radio operators used solar cells as a power source for half an hour to one hour to extend the battery life of their generators.

For club member Melanie Hardman, a graduate of Kent State University, the PCARS Club Field Day was a great opportunity to connect with people through radio.

“It’s really exciting to make connections inside or outside the United States,” she said. “It’s a great way for people to connect, and it’s all about camaraderie.”

The PCARS Club not only provides an opportunity to make new contacts, but also serves as a point of contact for emergency assistance when power outages occur in the region, hindering all usual forms of communication.

“If something happens here in Portage County and we need to reach someone in Columbus, the ham radio operators have the skills and knowledge to set up a radio station within minutes to enable communications,” Parkinson noted.

In addition to the lively atmosphere of making new contacts over the radio, the PCARS club also competes in an unofficial competition with other amateur radio clubs sponsored by the Amateur Radio Relay League to see which club can reach the most people. Parkinson acknowledged that while there is no official prize, the winning club can be proud that its members can contact almost anyone in the world.

Parkinson added that in addition to teaching its members ingenuity, the PCARS club also offers courses in antenna and radio construction that teach members technical skills.

“It’s getting more technical every day,” he said. “There are so many facets to the hobby that it’s unbelievable. We have people who do nothing but send signals from the moon back to Earth and communicate with people that way. It’s not just about communicating around the world.”