Local group tunes in to see who's listening
By Joey Pitchford
Published in News on January 29, 2018 5:50 AM
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News-Argus/JOEY PITCHFORD
George Skiba, left, and Les Shook, right, operate a radio during the Neuse River Basin Amateur Radio Association's winter field day Saturday. The group competed against other groups across the nation to see who could get in touch with the most radio sites in a 24-hour period.
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News-Argus/JOEY PITCHFORD
The radio setup inside Wilson Hines' tent Saturday. Hines, president of the Neuse River Basin Amateur Radio Association, was one of 18 association members to take part in the winter field day event Saturday.
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News-Argus/JOEY PITCHFORD
Les Shook talks to another radio operator across the country during the Neuse River Basin Amateur Radio Association's winter field day Saturday. The event also served as a training session in cooperation with Wayne County to prepare operators for crisis situations.
When the lights go out and the cellphones are down, the HAM radio operators of the Neuse River Basin Amateur Radio Association will be ready to step up.
Around 18 members of the association took part in the nationwide Winter Field Day event Saturday, an annual competition in which radio operators across the country work to see who can connect with the most radio groups over a 24-hour period.
The operators set up in tents around the Goldsboro Bridge Association site at 303 Old Mount Olive Highway on Friday. From there, they hooked up generators and solar panels to power their radios, and set up laptops with software to track their results.
Wilson Hines, president of the NRBARA, said the radio operators had to push through a rocky start.
"The idea here is that we come out to an unconnected place where we're off the grid. It's training for when things go wrong. And let me tell you, nothing, and I mean no thing, has gone right," he said with a laugh.
"We had two generators twice the size of the one we have on wheels here that were from the county, and we were testing them before and they weren't working. And we had two more over on the other side of the field that cut out once we got here."
The group made do, however, working with batteries and the remaining generators to get everything up and running. They held the event in cooperation with Wayne County, using several pieces of radio equipment loaned by the county outside of just generators.
Around 2 p.m., the actual competition began, with the operators working their radios in attempts to connect with other people across the nation. Meanwhile, other stations in North Carolina and other states were doing the same.
Hines said that HAM radio -- nobody really knows where the name comes from -- is a valuable tool during times of crisis. Hines helped during recovery efforts in New Orleans and Houston after Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Harvey, respectively, and said that amateur radio operators made a world of difference in helping people communicate.
"We are a platform for emergency communication, because we can talk local and we can talk worldwide at the same time," he said.
Hines was one of six people who, together, founded the association in August. He said that amateur radio operators in Wayne County could have been a major asset during Hurricane Matthew if they had been asked to help.
"HAM radio has a storied history of working with counties to provide solutions in emergency situations," he said, pointing to association member Les Shook. "Les over there was stuck in his home, and thankfully he had plenty of food and water so it was OK. But the question is always 'what if?'"
It could have been worse had no one been able to contact him, he said.
The annual winter event is usually the smaller of two such competitions -- the other to take place in June -- but the group decided to make its first official field day together a major undertaking.
Hines thanked several people for making the event happen, including association member Ven Faulk, president of Shumate-Faulk Funeral Home, and Wayne County Emergency Management Coordinator Craig Brown. He also thanked Goldsboro Bridge Battlefield Association founder Randy Sauls for allowing the group to use the site for training.
"There was never a 'well, what are you going to do?'" Hines said. "It was just 'yeah!' He has been an honorable gentleman."
Anyone interested in joining the club can visit neuseriverbasin.com, or check out the group's Facebook page. An email or message to either of those locations is the best way to get in touch, Hines said.