NEWINGTON – Scenes of destruction throughout the central part of the country as massive tornadoes ripped up areas near Jefferson City, Missouri. With all that wreckage, more than a thousand miles away in Newington, amateur radio operators are on the ready.
On Thursday the team at the American Radio Relay League was training for a hurricane scenario putting their ability to send massive amounts of messages and data during and after a disaster. Working in concert with the American Red Cross and Fema, the operators at the ARRL wanted to make sure their plans are in place as the hurricane season begins on June 1st. Joe Carcia, the station manager at the American Relay Radio League said, “if the grid is down, if cell service is down, we can still communicate over radio frequency using simple stations or complex ones like the one we have here (in Newington).”
Norm Fusaro, the director of operations for the ARRL said, “when something happens and we’re called up, our guys in the field come to action.” Fusaro added, “amateur radio works.”