An emergency communications exercise.

Christian Rochefort

For several years, members of the Outaouais Amateur Radio Club have participated in the annual Field Day, which always takes place on the last full weekend in June. This year, the exercise was held for 24 hours at Parc la Baie from 2 pm on Saturday June 28 to 2 pm on Sunday June 29.

The primary goal is to prepare for a potential disaster and provide emergency communications to the city or to the Province via the Québec Sécurité civile. In Gatineau, some club members have formed a specialized emergency communications group to support these two entities.

Organized by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) since 1933, the exercise spans North America and has become a sort of competition whose goal is to contact as many stations as possible in 24 hours. Several modes of telecommunications are used, including voice, Morse code (yes, it still exists), and digital.

Amateur radio is the largest hobby in the world, with over 3,000,000 members, and the number being approximately 73,000 in Canada.