The Maple Valley Amateur Radio Club scheduled an American Radio Relay League Field Day event at Lake Wilderness beginning at 11 a.m. Saturday through 2 p.m. Sunday.

The field day is a picnic, a campout, practice for emergencies, an informal contest and fun.

The club encourages anyone interested to come by and join the hands-on use of radios, licensed radio operators or not, or just observe and learn more about amateur radio. The contest portion of field day is simply to contact as many other stations as possible and to learn to operate our radio gear in abnormal situations and less than optimal conditions. Come see the behind-the-scenes action of how emergency communications are handled.

Along with providing emergency communications, ham radio operators use their skills to help with events such as marathons, triathlons and fundraisers like the Maple Valley Bear Run, Lake Meridian Triathlon and Maple Valley Bra Run. Also celebrations like the Maple Valley Days parade as well as exhibits at fairs, museums and conventions. These are all large, preplanned and non-emergency activities.

The field day is the single most popular on-the-air event held annually in the US and Canada. On the fourth weekends of June of each year, more than 35,000 radio amateurs gather with their clubs, groups or simply with friends to operate from remote locations.

This annual event 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.

Its motto is: “When all else fails, ham radio works.”

The motto 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.

For decades, amateur radio operators have been there during emergencies. Today, there are more than 750,000 amateur radio operators in the United States and more than 2.5 million worldwide. Information on how to become involved in amateur radio is available from the ARRL – the National Association for Amateur Radio, 225 Main Street, Newington, CT 06111 or by calling 1-800-32-NEW HAM. The URL for ARRL’s home page is www.arrl.org.