Levittown Radio Club Shows Off Skills For Field Day



by Alex Lloyd Gross

Field Day is an emergency preparedness exercise for Amateur Radio Operators in North America. Operators will join clubs and those clubs will set up radio stations all cross the region and communicate with each other. It’s simple, it’s fun and it can be frustrating all in one breath. At Tyler State Park, the Penn Wireless Association set up shop for 24 hours this weekend.

According to club president John Melchor, “There are three ways stations can communicate with each other. Voice, Morse Code and Digital.” The conversations are not extensive. call sign, location and number of stations are being used. Penn Wireless is based in Levittown.

All radio waves are victims of sunspots and the recent solar flares may look pretty as Northern Lights, but that plays holy heck with radio communications.

Back at Tyler, club members set up antenna masts and brought radios to operate. Some were in tents, others were in communications area set up under the pavilion. They were waiting for the start of Field Day, which is 2:00 PM. Power was from generators. Antennas were makeshift wires hung from masts and trees..

Alex Lloyd Gross Photo- Delaware Valley News.com Members of Penn Wireless inspect a generator.

Should an EMP, storm or other nefarious act take down the cell phone grid, and the internet, People will be able to get messages through to people across North America by use of Amateur Radio. A license is needed to operate on the radio bands and the Penn Wireless Associate holds testing every month.

By 4:00 PM the club was firing on all cylinders, some were on the radio, others were keeping the power up and running while others prepared food.

The members of PWA come from all areas but draw heavily from Lower Bucks County. This exercise is promoted and sanctioned by the American Radio Relay League or ARRL. Different clubs have different locations where they conduct their Field Day.


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1 thought on “Levittown Radio Club Shows Off Skills For Field Day

  1. John Melchor says:

    The Real Person Badge!

    The commenter acts as a real person and verified as not a bot. Passed all tests against spam bots. Anti-Spam by CleanTalk.

    Great journalism, Mr. Gross. Hope to see you next year.

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