Press Release: TARC Field Day 2019

For Immediate Release
For additional information contact:

Bill Bode, N4WEB
N4WEB@hamclub.org
(813) 382-9262
www.hamclub.org

“If the BIG ONE comes; Who ya’ gonna call? Tampa Bay Radio Hams!”

Public Demo of Emergency Communications commencing 2:00 PM Saturday, June 22^nd until 2:00 PM Sunday, June 23th, 2019.

Tampa Amateur Radio Club (TARC)
7801 N. 22nd St. Tampa, FL 33610 (dead end of N. 22nd St. north of E. Sligh Ave).

Very visual demonstration of volunteer emergency communications at the start of Hurricane Season! Live shots easily accommodated for hard feature stories. Tampa City Council member Charlie Miranda will attend on Saturday, June 22nd at 11:00 AM.

Tampa, Florida – June 19, 2019 – Despite the Internet, cell phones, email and modern communications, every year entire regions find themselves in the dark. Hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, storms, ice and even the occasional cutting of fiber optic cables leave people without the means to communicate.

The one consistent service that has never failed is amateur radio. These radio operators, often called “hams”, provide backup communications for everything from the American Red Cross to FEMA and even for the International Space Station. Tampa Bay area “hams” will join with thousands of other Amateur Radio operators showing their emergency capabilities June 22-23, 2019.

This annual event, called “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.

In the Tampa Bay area, the Tampa Amateur Radio Club (TARC) will be demonstrating amateur radio at the TARC Clubhouse, 7801 N. 22nd St. Tampa, Florida (located at the end of N. 22nd St., north of E. Sligh Ave.) on June 22rd through June 23rd. We invite the public to come and see ham radio’s new capabilities and learn how to get their own FCC radio license before the next disaster strikes.

Amateur Radio is growing in the US. There are now over 700,000 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 both emergency communications for thousands of state and local emergency response agencies and non-emergency community services too, all for free.

To learn more about Amateur Radio, go to www.hamclub.org. The public and media are 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!

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