Today might be the most important day in emergency communications that most people have never heard of.
Right here in Rock Hill, at Ric Porter's riverfront house, and in garages and basements and fields and mountaintops all around the country, amateur radio operators will gather with their knobs and dials and antennas and practice how to keep in touch with the rest of the world when there is no electricity.
More than 35,000 people nationally will participate, including more than 200 locally, in the Amateur Radio Relay League "Field Day."
But this annual gathering is more than just a bunch of ham radio guys yukking it up on wavelengths that bounce off the ionosphere to reach Russia, China and Japan in what is like the Super Bowl of ham radio.
Hams are vital links in communications when electricity is demolished.
"After Hurricane Katrina, ham radios were the link to the world," said Porter, a member of the Carolina DX Association ham club that is part of the field day. "In Haiti, after the earthquake, hams helped people coordinate disaster response."
Hams are Federal Communications Commission-licensed amateur radio operators. A person's call numbers are just like his name and Social Security number - his alone.
Hams in Rock Hill today will include guys who dig ditches and guys who own private jets. On the radio, all are equal.
Most hams literally can rig up a radio with a solar panel and a battery and talk to the other side of the earth or the other side of the country or the other side of town.
"We have some that even bounce signals off the moon," said Joe Barkley of Chester, another of the Carolina DX Association members.
Amateur radio operators, including the York County Amateur Radio Society, plan much of their year around this one 24-hour contest, which runs from 2 p.m. today through 2 p.m. Sunday.
Shifts of operators will compete in specific categories using different equipment, stations and wavelengths to talk to others from around the country. The rules for some categories allow generators, but no electricity from normal sources.
Just like after a hurricane, earthquake, whatever.
And to do it, these hams have some pretty cool stuff that looks like it is straight out of a war zone.
They will put up antennas of all shapes and sizes that look like old-style TV aerials on steroids. They will have towers and even military surplus stuff on winches and spools that look like what rebels might use in some third-world spat.
"We talked to the guys on the Space Station before, because most of them are hams," said Porter. "One day I can talk to somebody in Japan, then a minute later, talk to somebody at the beach or down the street."
Today's field day is to test emergency preparedness, plus see how many people each individual or club can contact in other parts of the country, said Dick Williams, contest manager for the club.
Members have already rigged up enough antennas and wires to make the place look like an Army outpost.
"When there is an emergency," Williams said, "we want to be ready."
