Amateur Radio Club assists the Red Cross

the club would not attempt to “take over” its operations, but rather assist the group.

Along with establishing communication in areas hit hard by disasters, the Nassau Amateur Radio Club works with hospitals and helps keep track of casualties. The club is a member of the ARRL, which, according to Komza, makes it a “special service club.”

“We specialize in emergency communication, education, technical communication and electronics,” he said.

At the annual field day, Komza and fellow licensed radio operators made contact with others across the continent who were taking part in the drill. Komza said that about 43,000 people were set up in North America for event.

“I hope that we learned that we can better ourselves and make the communication that we have a lot more efficient,” he said.

Komza added that these drills could always be improved on with such actions as making antennas more efficient. New modes of communication have been added recently, including Morse code and a digital mode whereby a computer communicates with another computer.

After decades of taking part in these drills in Baldwin, Komza highly recommended that residents apply for ham radio licenses.

“If anybody has any aspirations or interest in radio at all, one of the best things they can do for themselves is get involved in ham radio,” he said.

“Right now there are three license classes in the United States. There’s the Entry license, which is actually called technician, and that gives you some privileges. Then the next one up is called General, and that gives you more privileges. Then the top one is called Extra, which gives you all the ham radio privileges on every frequency, every band, every mode.”

Komza added that ham radio operators must pass a test to receive a license. A couple days after passing the test, they receive the license from the Federal Communications Commission.