Anyone who has ever been interested in amateur radio can learn all about it at a 24-hour event Aug. 24-25.
Matthew Carter, public information officer for the Amateur Radio Emergency Services (ARES) attached to the Hoosier Lakes Radio Club, said it will be held at Pla-Mor Campgrounds, off U.S. 6, just east of Bremen and west of Nappanee.
“What this is, is we’re calling it Campgrounds On The Air. What we’re doing is, we’re bringing out anybody who is interested in amateur radio, we’re inviting them to come out. We’re going to have many different aspects of ham radio, or amateur radio, there and set up for people to see. Now, granted, there’s so many things you can do in amateur radio, there’s no way we can get everything set up, but we’re going to have some digital communications set up .... we’re going to have a couple fox hunts, we’re probably going to have an FTA set up,” he said.
During the fox hunts, a transmitter will be hidden somewhere in the campgrounds, sending signals out periodically, and the people with receivers with antennaes have to directionally find where that transmitter is sending signals from.
“It’s a fun thing to see about antennaes, to see about radio waves like a scavenger hunt. But on the tactical real-life side, a fox hunt simulates someone being down or something being done,” Carter said. “So say you have an airplane or a person getting lost going hiking or something like that, they’re sending out a transmission they need help, then we can be out and we can go, ‘OK, it’s coming from this way.’”
He said they triangulate different patterns with the radio waves to find where the person is located.
Campgrounds On The Air also will have lots of things for the kids to do, too. Carter said an outside source will have like a carnival with free cotton candy, a dunk tank and other activities.
“We’re trying to make this as much of a family event as possible, but also get people interested, and focus it in toward amateur ham radio so we can help grow the club but also grow interest in the amateur radios,” he stated.
The fun begins at 11 a.m. Aug. 24 and ends at 11 a.m. Aug. 25, rain or shine. There is no fee for Campground On The Air, but Pla-Mor Campground is charging an entry fee of $5 per person.
Carter said that $5 will cover the basic amenities for the entry. They also have a pool, put-put, fishing and other activities.
There is no age restriction on being an amateur radio operator. “If you can pass the test to get licensed, you can be an amateur radio operator,” Carter said.
The Hoosier Lakes Radio Club is a group of amateur radio operators that get together monthly, but also have groups within the group that “do different things,” Carter said. For examples, ARES may work with Kosciusko County Emergency Management Agency Director Kip Shuter during emergencies.
“So if there was a major incident in our district/area, we would be able to be dispatched out by them to go out and give radio communications for emergency situations,” Carter said.
Some members of the club are just club members who enjoy talking on the radio and talking on the radio with one another and aren’t as involved with some of the other things the club does.
“On the other things, we have guys that are into the digital world of the ham radios,” he said. “... So, we’re just a group of amateur radio enthusiasts that like to get together and have our own little club, but we are regulated by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and the ARRL (American Radio Relay League), so we are still regulated by them of what we can and can’t do or the different frequencies we can or can’t use for the amateur radio.”
Currently, Carter said the club has about 35 members. Of those, about 20 are pretty active in the group.
“We do have quite a few older guys in our group. We have a couple guys who are in their 70s and 80s, so they are somewhat restricted on being able to get out and do a lot of things with us, but they’re still out on the radio talking with us pretty often,” he said.
Locally, the club has a 2-meter repeater that they have their nets on at 7 p.m. Wednesdays. A net is a bunch of amateurs that get together, with one guy in charge, and have a meeting over the air. The monthly club meeting is conducted in-person.
“It’s not necessarily a club because it is open to anybody that’s an amateur radio operator, so it’s not like restricted in that aspect, but it is restricted on distance. With the 2-meter repeater, 50-60 miles is a pretty safe range of how wide or how many people that we can reach on the 2-meter,” Carter said. “Then we do have a UHF 70-centimeter repeater that we do, I believe, every other Saturday. So we have a 2-meter repeater on Saturday mornings at 8 a.m., and then every other Saturday they switch over to the 70-centimeter.”
The ARES net is every Saturday morning and is geared more toward emergency response. Carter said that’s less of a meeting and more of a simulation of an emergency situation.
The call sign for Hoosier Lakes Radio Club is K9CWD, and Carter’s call sign is KD9WZC.
“So, essentially, if someone was trying to get a hold of me, they would call this call sign, that’s how they would know to get a hold of me. Each amateur radio operator has their own unique call sign, so nobody in the world has the exact same one,” Carter said.
The club can be found on Facebook under Hoosier Lakes Radio Club.
“Clubwise, we are very active in the community. We provide comms for the Fat + Skinny Tire Festival race, the Shamrock Shimmy, we help with other counties as well,” he said, from Albion to LaPorte. “So we’re very, very active in the community and the surrounding area with offering communications for different (events).”
The Hoosier Lakes Radio Club was founded in 1951.