Yesterday I dropped into a store wearing one of my old ” ARES ” golf shirts with the ARES crest surrounded by the words “Amateur Radio Emergency Service”
Above graphic was a cut and paste from the Radio Amateurs of Canada Website. For more information on Amateur Radio please visit them at:
and someone asked me what it was all about. I sat down with them and tried to explain about the hobby and how we like to assist when called upon but that did not really seem to work so I came up with this:
You’ve heard of First Responders??? Fire… Police…. Ambulance… Paramedics…Right???? Well their communications systems are fairly robust so they should be fine in an emergency situation…..
They agreed and thought it made sense so far…. so I came back with this….
In our case we provide communications support to the Second Responders….. In a large emergency the local landline phone system and/or the cellular system would (could) be overloaded or not functioning so….. The ARES groups might get called in to provide communications between certain locations that had a need for communication such as emergency shelters, civic offices and other such locations as deemed necessary by the local goverment responding to the emergency.
Suddenly the light went off above their head…. They seemed to understand this part of it and after that… I told them that if they were to Google the words “Amateur Radio” and “Their City” that they most likely had a group of willing volunteers (friends/neighbors) helping out close to their neighborhood.
They thanked me for my time and I continued on with my shopping…
So thinking about it a day later…..
How would you explain it?
73bob
VA3QV and his Amateur Radio Hobby 