ROWAN COUNTY — Whiskey, four, echo, x-ray, uniform. A seemingly random collection of words may be the difference in an emergency.
The Rowan Amateur Radio Society, with the call sign W4EXU, stationed themselves behind the Rowan County Rescue Squad center from 2 p.m. June 27 to 2 p.m. June 28 for the 2026 Field Day, a national 24-hour ham radio marathon where groups compete to contact the most people as possible in the period.
The marathon run by the National Association for Amateur Radio (ARRL) aims to introduce people who have never done ham radio to the hobby and also prepare people for potential emergencies. More than 1,500 sites were set up nationwide this weekend participating in the field day, with roughly 35,000 operators.
While often considered a pastime, ham radios are often relied on when there is an emergency situation that temporarily takes down other communications, like most recently with Hurricane Helene.
“This is fun and games today, but the techniques being used here are the techniques that were used in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina,” said Bill Morine N2COP, vice director of the ARRL Roanoke division.
Ham radio is often not as simple as buying a cheap radio and talking into it.
“It’s not just talking to the radio, you have to build an antenna, you have to make electronics, you can write code because we write our software,” Rowan Amateur Radio Society Public Information Officer Christopher Krstanovic AI2F said.
The group in Rowan wants to make the hobby accessible to young people who have never had experience with radios.
“When I was 10, this is how I started. A bunch of guys like this, a little better looking than these guys, helped me build my first little tree transistor radio,” Krstanovic said. “I want to do that for other young people, especially underprivileged kids around here.”
With collected equipment, the group transmitted signals in various forms from Morse code to voice transmissions. Some of their technology was lower frequency domestic correspondence, and other machines could communicate with people around the world.
Members of the group were on site for the full 24 hours, with people at night communicating with the west coast and other countries as much as possible. Krstanovic talked about the importance of dawn and dusk for radio communication, known as greyline propagation, a phenomena that allows longer distance radio communication across continents on the opposite side of the world.
While ham radio operators may be considered amateur, representatives from ARRL that stopped by the event were adamant that there is nothing but professionalism in the society.
“We all hold federal licenses. That’s what amateur is, and the word amateur doesn’t mean unprofessional. It means we cannot accept compensation for services. A lot of the technology we’re using today — AM, FM, cellular — hams were using a primitive version of these in the 1960s, so the technology you’re gonna be using tomorrow is being demonstrated here,” Morine said.
The club is hosting its annual Firecracker Hamfest on July 11 at 8 a.m. at the Salisbury Civic Center where vendors sell radio equipment, new and used, for people interested in getting started or upgrading their setup. Admission is $10, and interested vendors can reach out to the group. Additionally, the group will offer testing at 10 a.m. for ham certification. Questions about the event can be directed to Ralph Mowery KU4PT at 704-279-4737.
The Rowan Amateur Radio Society meets every second Monday at 7 p.m. at the Rowan County Rescue Squad center at 1140 Julian Road. The society welcomes new members without experience, offering lessons and license testing, and experienced members looking for a local ham radio community.
