THOMASVILLE — On June 24, the Thomasville Amateur Radio Club is inviting the local community to come and learn about ham radio as they participate in the 2023 Summer Field Day.

Club Treasurer Larry Ochalek said that the club is an assortment of licensed individuals that come from far and wide to participate in the hobby together.

“The Thomasville Amatuer Radio Club is a group of licensed individuals, we have three different levels, from technician to general to extra,” Ochalek said. “The club has been active in this area since 1953. We have about two dozen members that come from as far away as Valdosta and also from Florida, from the Monticello region. Most of them are Thomas County or Grady County, also Moultrie.”

However, more than just a hobby, the club is a public service organization, supplementing local official communication channels with their own brand to stay in touch.“We’re a public service organization,” Ochalek said. “We’re here primarily to support amateur radio, it’s really an emergency communication augmentation for official communications when there are major disasters in the area, but other than that, we have fun talking on the radio.”

Ochalek shared the history behind ham radios revealing they were popular before they were even licensed, with tinkering being a huge facet of the hobby.

“Hams are like the original tinkerers,” he said. “They’re probably the first electronic geeks going back more than a century, before they were even licensed.”

Ochalek said the Summer Field Day was a big event where all those interested parties came together to see how many confirmed radio contacts they could make within a time limit.

“Summer Field Day is our big event, it’s 50 states in the United States and Canada, and what we try to do is make as many contacts, confirmed radio contacts, with another radio operator within a time limit,” he said. “This year, it starts on Saturday the 24 of June at 2 p.m. eastern and will end 2 p.m. eastern on Sunday the 25.”

Having held the annual Winter Field Day back in January, Ochalek said that this was a much bigger event with over 600,000 operators in the United States participating.

“Summer Field Day is the same thing, only it’s much bigger,” he said. “There are around 700,000 operators in the United States and a lot of them participate in the Summer Field Day.”

Being held at the Shriners Club grounds off of Highway 19, Ochalek said that they encouraged people to come and listen to members of the club talk about ham radio and the effort and electronic tricks that go into each and every contact they make across America.

“We encourage the people to come in and learn about amateur radio,” he said. “It overlaps with computers and with electronics.”

He added that the best time to come around would be between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. on that Saturday, June 24.

Ochalek said that when there are power outages or cellphone towers go down, it’s always handy to know a thing or two about ham radio to stay in touch and get messages out in the midst of an emergency. “If you’ve got a ham radio and you’ve got a car battery, something about 12 volts, and a half decent antenna, you can get on that, whether or not communications, your cellphone, are down and whether or not the internet is up,” he said. “You can get your message out. That’s the thing about ham radios that people really like.”