A Really Fun Day At School

As May begins I would like to tell you about an interesting and fun activity that took place this past Friday. For the past 4 years, The Imagine School at Lakewood Ranch and the Coast Guard Auxiliary have presented “First Responders Day” at the school. This year, our Amateur Radio Emergency Service unit was asked to participate. We happily accepted and began making plans for how best to demonstrate amateur radio and the work of our ARES unit to 700 schoolchildren.

Many members of ARES turned out for the event which lasted from 9 a.m. to almost 2 p.m. Sixteen amateur radio operators were on hand for the display, most equipped with hand held ham radios or walkie-talkies. That fact was of great importance as you will learn in a bit. The ARES team set up the trailer with generator power and several antennas for the various bands we planned on using for the display starting around 8:30 a.m. By the time the first class of kids came to visit our display we were all ready.

As each group of students arrived, a tag team of ham operators was ready to briefly explain what we do and who we provide support to in a disaster. Originally, this duty was to be rotated amongst all of the operators on site but once we saw how well the students responded to Jim Woodson, KE4INM and Roger Byron, KR4WS as the narrators of our display, we left them in control of that aspect and supported them in other ways.

After a brief explanation of amateur radio and our role in a disaster, Jim and Roger broke up the kids into smaller groups of 3 to 5 kids and acting as control operators, they proceeded to get all of them on the air. Roger would call for a station to talk to the kids and one of the many ARES members in the area would answer. Each child heard his or her name over the radio and got to say a few words to the other operator. That is why so many of our group were equipped with walkie-talkies. We kept the transmissions brief and used a simplex frequency so we did not tie up any local repeaters.

It was a busy time but I am very proud to say that virtually every student who came by got to talk to a ham operator over the radio. Jim and Roger did a fantastic job keeping the kids interested and the rest of us provided the voices at the other end of the radio.

In addition to the thrill of actually talking over the radio, the kids were exposed to satellite communications and HF digital modes. Watching the words of an operator half a world away stream across the computer monitor was quite a wow factor for the kids and the fact that we could see as many as 8 or 9 conversations going on at the same time enthralled them.

The Coast Guard Auxiliary and the school even fed our crew at lunch time which was unexpected but much appreciated. The Coast Guard demonstrated their HH-60 helicopter and one of their larger rigid inflatable boats. When the helicopter landed the entire school came out to watch. Local Fire Departments also displayed their vehicles and gear and even the TSA showed up with their K-9 units. From the comments I heard, all of the students had a great time and I know the members of ARES did as well.

A side benefit to the day was that some of our members were able to inform the teachers at the school about the many resources available in amateur radio through the American Radio Relay League’s in school programs to enhance the teaching of science at the elementary, middle and high school levels. With the ubiquity of electronics in daily life, it is vitally important that students at all levels gain some understanding of how these devices work. The ARRL programs for teachers aid in this task and are well known for the quality of the instruction they provide.

You can find out more about these programs and indeed about any aspect of amateur radio by going to www.arrl.org and spending some time there. The website is quite large so just take it in manageable bites and come back often.