In a month when Illinois broke the state record for tornadoes in a year with at least 147 confirmed reports, a group of communication enthusiasts is showcasing how rapid response over the airwaves could potentially help with emergency response and maybe even save lives.
Members of the DuPage Amateur Radio Club will take over a section of Wilder Park in Elmhurst for 24 hours this weekend to show how the organization could help with communication during an emergency.
The American Radio Relay League Field Day takes place near the tennis courts from 1 p.m. Saturday, June 27, to 1 p.m. Sunday, June 28. Anyone who is an amateur radio operator in any class is welcome to participate. Spectators and potential members also are invited to see how ham radios work.
“Radio clubs and individuals across North America, Canada and Mexico go out into the field and operate under emergency conditions,” said John McCarty, of Downers Grove, who’s been club president about 15 years and a member about 40.
“What we do is set up on Friday night and at 1 p.m. Saturday we try to make contact. We’ll have several stations set up, and we’ll try to contact other amateur radio operations or individuals involved in the same event. We do this for a 24-hour event. It’s run on generators – no electrical power.”
The event gets a bit competitive, at least when it comes to bragging rights. “We’re competing against other clubs and organizations doing the same thing, in a good-natured way,” McCarty said. “We count the other number of stations we contact. There are different classifications (in the contest) depending on how many transmitters you have.”
The event is very social, “a 24-hour picnic,” he said. “When somebody’s not behind a radio, they’re off in the cook tent and having a coffee and getting some grub.”
It’s staffed by about 35 members who slide in and out instead of having a formal shift. “Because of the nature of short-wave radio, some frequencies go dead at night. That’s just physics,” McCarty said. “We do some VHF and UHF but it’s all short wave. That’s ham’s birthright – we discovered it.”
Club Secretary Brian Eder, of Westmont, who’s held that position for 32 years of his 35-year membership, described field day as a simulation. “We’re doing it to test ourselves to make sure it all works so if we do get in a bad situation, we’ll be able to help out during a real emergency.”
He gave a real-life example, from “the distant past” — a May 8, 1988, fire at Illinois Bell’s Hinsdale switching station. It was the ”greatest telecommunications disaster ever,” according to a contemporary Tribune story.
“We were asked to help out at area hospitals to provide communication between the floors. We did that with our radio in a number of hospitals,” Eder explained.
McCarty, who spent 15 years in a cell phone outage group, said the outage was caused when Hinsdale’s AT&T office, the main switching hub for the western suburbs, “burned to the ground.”
“That went on for weeks. It actually happened on a Mothers Day. Someone paged me and I tried to call them back. All switches were busy.”
If this month’s tornadoes had come farther north, the club could have helped. “Let’s say the tornado that happened in Effingham happened in Brookfield. If communications are wiped out, we can set up there and contact Springfield. Set up an information communication structure (to replace) the one that got torn down,” he explained.
“Others of us are trained spotters for severe weather, and we’ve helped out with some of those events like the Plainfield tornado,” Eder said of the disaster, which happened in 1990 and killed dozens of people. The club also sprang into action in 2024 when Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago was hit by a cyberattack.
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In addition to testing for emergency preparedness, the club will offer exams for licensing. “You don’t have to go to an FCC license class,” McCarty said.
The testing takes place at 1:30 p.m. Saturday in the picnic area by the food tables. Test takers should bring a photo ID and $15.
“The FCC has its own fee to get the call sign, the license,” said Eder, one of the examiners. “That is a separate fee payable directly to them for $35.” Test takers learn right away if they have passed.
“Our club is one of the first ones to do it during a field day. We started five years ago,” McCarty said, adding that usually four or five people take the exam. “What we do after they pass, we walk them over to a station to have some fun and be able to make contacts and see what it’s all about. We put them on the air as soon as we can!”
The DuPage Amateur Radio Club, founded in 1948, has about 80 members, both men and women.
“The youngest person in our club is 14 years old, and we have our oldest member who is 96,” Eder said. “We have some remote members, but most of them are all the way down to the surrounding counties, Kane County, DuPage County, Will County and in Chicago. They all come to our meetings and are members of our club.”
Eder called the organization a “special services club with the American Radio Relay League, our member society.”
He explained the club’s mission this way: “We are representatives of a communications organization linked to the American Radio Relay League, and through them we are representatives of the communications capabilities that we are allowed through amateur radio. We strive to be able to promote amateur radio in its finest light.”
The club’s regular meetings take place monthly at Church of the Holy Nativity in Clarendon Hills. After a business meeting, a technical and operational presentation happen, McCarty said. “It’s not strictly about amateur radio – it’s about communications technology. We try to come across the spectrum.”
The group also has a few meetings each year that are more social, including the popular “date night where we’ll hold an amateur radio-themed dance,” he said. “Another is show and tell where people are encouraged to bring in their projects to show off. Hams still build stuff.”
Members recently learned how to identify severe weather, thanks to storm awareness training. “It was very well-attended. We do that every year in April, the high time of tornado season,” Eder said.
Members also interact at other times, with several “nets” during the week. “A group of amateurs get together on a frequency to talk,” McCarty explained. “Some nets are technical and some are social. Our Sunday night is information. Some are for testing emergency preparedness.”
To join the club, all that’s needed is an interest in radio communication. Members with an amateur radio call sign get full voting privileges. To learn more, visit the club’s website, w9dup.org.
Eder, whose call sign is WB9UGX, joined when he moved to the western suburbs and wanted a club that combined his hobby and public service. “I found this club and they were very welcoming and seemed to be interested in all kinds of activities, and I was interested in the public service piece of it,” he shared.
For instance, for the 20-some years, the club has helped at Grove Express, a 5K race that raises money for scholarships that drew 7,000 runners last year.
McCarty, whose call sign is N9HRT, has been interested in amateur radio from the age of 15. “Like a lot of young people, as you enter adulthood you move away from things like that. I was busy doing the fast things in life – fast cars, fast motorcycles and fast women – and caught none,” he joked. “Then I started a family and wanted to get back to it then.”
He urged people to check out the field day. “If people want to come out and see amateur radio in action, this is the perfect opportunity. Amateur radio is kind of baked into our technological history, so people are kind of aware of it. They can enjoy a beautiful park and see us at work.”
Melinda Moore is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.