Earlier this year the Foothills played host to a worldwide competition that not many knew was even happening.

The Foothills Amateur Radio Society competed in their annual "Field Day' competition in which long-range radio operators and enthusiasts compete to beat their scores from previous years and others in their "weight class"

F.A.R.S. secretary Vince D'eon says they compete every year in this event which is an emergency preparedness test while also having some fun competition.

"The members of the Foothills Amateur Radio Society, and a couple thousand people from across the world with the majority in North America, competed in an amateur radio event called Field Day.  It's emergency preparedness and we get bonus points for setting up our equipment in abnormal conditions, out in public, in the field, maybe running off emergency power."

D'eon says it's a large competition which requires a lot of work after the fact to get their scores back.

"To measure competition on a scale with thousands and thousands of people...we have to declare what our "class" is, which is sort of like weight class in boxing, and region.  We wait around 6 months to get our scores back.

D'eon says this competition is usually all for fun and to prepare them for a real emergency. 

F.A.R.S has been deployed in the past during the 2013 floods.

"During the 2013 floods all the conventional infrastructure had failed, Telus landlines were down, cellular was down because the landlines were down. Shaw cable was down, all of those things around High River, when the Alberta Emergency Management Agency could not get a hold of the Town of High River through these means they called us in."

D'eon says he's been a radio enthusiast since he was young and has kept up with it for most of his life.

The results of the 2020 Field Day won't be in until January of 2021 while D'eon excitedly awaits the results saying he thinks he and his team did very well while still remaining socially distant.

 

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