The Johnson County Sun - volunteer amateur radio operators

The Johnson County Sun - volunteer amateur radio operators

"With more than 30 years of experience using a ham radio,

Don Warkentien, Overland Park, shows Rich Zaban, in blue, Overland Park, how to use a radio as Bill Brinker, Shawnee, watches Saturday during a communications expo organized by the Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network at the Ensor Farm Site and Museum in Olathe.

Bill Brinker of Shawnee is one of the oldest members of the community of volunteer amateur radio operators in Johnson County.

So the retired Motorola engineer helped during the communications expo organized by the Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network (SATERN) Saturday at the Ensor Farm Site and Museum, 18995 W. 183rd St., Olathe.

Brinker had set up a VHF radio station, including a tent for the radio equipment and a tall antenna outside. The afternoon had turned chilly and it was drizzling.

Not a problem. When they are most in need, which is during disasters such as tornadoes and hurricanes, amateur radio operators, or hams, function in worse conditions.

'You don't always get nice weather for this kind of thing,' Brinker said. 'You've got to be out in the wind and the rain and the cold. They don't schedule disasters in nice weather,' he said.

More than 120 people, some from neighboring states and most of them ham operators with varying degrees of experience, visited the expo, aimed at explaining what amateur radio is all about and displaying different types of communications, from the basic radio capable of sending and receiving messages by Morse to sophisticated systems using computers and a global positioning system."



73 fer nw,
Bob N5IET

10X# 37210, FP#-1141, SMIRK#-5177
http://www.n5iet.com/
Code may be taking a back seat for now,
but the pioneering spirit that put the code
there in the first place is out front of it all.