Karen Weaver, President of the Johnson County Amateur Radio Club, spoke excitedly about ham radio. It's a hobby that allows people to use ham radios to converse locally and all over the world without the use of cellular devices or the internet. These radios can be used to communicate with friends, as well as, used during times of distress. According to the American Radio Relay League, there are about 700,000 licensed amateur radio operators in the United States and some three million worldwide. Each amateur radio club has a home base or headquarters. Johnson County's radio headquarters is located on Berry Branch Road in a building dedicated in memory of Danny Herman. Volunteer radio operators can go out to designated locations with their own equipment and report back to base on a specific predetermined frequency with information such as the condition of roads, structures, power lines, and those needing medical assistance. The field operator communicates by talking on his radio back to home base.
   The weekend of October 1 and 2, 2022 the Johnson County club held a communication and equipment test exercise. The scenario was to respond to Hurricane Gracie, a storm that reached the northeastern Tennessee area from September 30 through October 2, 1959. Coincidentally, Hurricane Ian was taking place while club members tested equipment and practiced their skills.

   If the field operator is "out of the line of sight of the base radio," he/she would try to reach out to repeater equipment, so the repeater could relay transmissions back to the home base. On Saturday the repeater located at a site on Stone Mountain was used by mobile radios that can talk through the air waves sent and picked up by antennas. On Sunday, the Forge Creek repeater was used.
   The field operator's report is received by a net controller, while a different individual sits at a computer and transcribes the report into a Windows-based form. E-mails, text, photographs, reports, and forms can be transmitted to another radio base - all in the event of an emergency, to a particular agency depending on the report. Weather conditions and medical assistance requests are among two of the possibilities where transmitted reports may be sent.
   While practicing during an actual event (Hurricane Ian), the words "this is a test" or "this is an exercise" is used before and after a communication transmission to prevent confusion. Ham radios are effective especially when there is a power outage or down cell phone towers or limited or no internet availability.
   Exercises such as the one that took place on Saturday and Sunday are all done by volunteers who enjoy hamming it up and preparing for real-time emergencies.  If you are interested in learning more, please visit their national organization, the American Radio Relay League at: https://arrl.org/ .
_{By: Elizabeth A. King, Freelance Writer The Tomahawk Newspaper}