The Portage County Amateur Radio Service allowed interested persons to take a look at what the magic of radio is all about. The PCARS held an open house at their club center while they competed in the annual Ohio QSO Party contest last Saturday afternoon at 705 Oakwood Street.
“We are doing it to so if people want to know what amateur radio is all about, it gives them an opportunity. A lot of people, when you mention amateur radio, they think of it as an old guy sitting in a dusty basement sending morse code, it is not very exciting in the world today, but it is,” PCARS Vice President Tom Sly told The Weekly Villager.
The PCARS is a local non-profit organization that invites amateur radio enthusiasts to enjoy their love for radio communications, having been central to the City of Ravenna for 20 of its 21 years of existence.
“This is one of the most forward hobbies that you can get involved in,” Sly added. “It involves radio, it involves electronics, it involves computers, it involves worldwide communications, it involves satellites. We do all kinds of things.”
Sly, who has been a member for all 21 years, said that the club has given amateur radio enthusiasts an opportunity to participate in many activities involving the use of radio transmission
“We talk to people all over the world, so it gives you an opportunity to learn about some geography, where the people are, what the customs are,” he added.
On Saturday, PCARS was competing in the annual Ohio QSO Party Contest, a 12-hour contest where the club competes against other active amateur radio clubs in the State of Ohio to see which club can contact the most amateur radio stations in a single day. The range of competing stations extends across the Ohio, which is estimated to consist of between 26,000-27,000 amateur radio clubs. The winning club receives a certificate of victory and Sly said that PCARS has been named the winning club several times over the last few years.
Not only was PCARS attempting to reach as clubs in the, but clubs across the globe, using nothing but morse code to communicate.
“Fade back to the days of Morse code, where we had to spell everything out, there were a bunch of codes that were created called Q codes to make it faster to send messages back and forth,” Sly noted.
All PCARS members are eligible to participate in the contest, as they attempt to individually reach out to as many stations as possible. PCARS’ club center consisted of only four stations that were accessible, and there was no time limit on any one station, with each station being on a different frequency.
For each station that an operator contacted, they would receive a point if they made contact via voice frequency or would be awarded two points if they contacted a station using morse code.
“When we make contacts between each other, we file that on a log, we keep a log of all of the contacts that we make and they keep a log of all of the contacts that they made,” Sly said. “We set it together in what is called a computer file and then it goes to the people who judge the contest to see who made the most contacts and if this one says, hey we made a contact with PCARS, they can go look it up in our file and cross-check them.”
According to Sly, the Ohio QSO Party Contest was just one of several annual contests that PCARS competes in frequently.
“There is not a weekend that goes by where there is not some kind of contest going on in amateur radio,” he added.
As much as Sly acknowledged that amateur radio is a hobby, it also represents a craft.
“It is something we do because we love doing it for the same reason that some people like building go carts or collecting stamps. There are all kinds of different things out there,” he said. “Our goal here is get people to stop in and see what we do and wonder what goes on in that building down in Ravenna that has the antennas outside.”
