Jacksonville ham radio club shows emergency communication skills at Field Day

Jacksonville Amateur Radio Society members set up at Prairieland Heritage Museum on Saturday to show how ham radio can keep emergency traffic moving when storms knock out cell service. The Field Day display ran from 1 p.m. Saturday to 1 p.m. Sunday at 1005 W. Michigan Ave., where operators planned voice, Morse code and satellite demonstrations.

The annual ARRL event drew more than 30,000 amateur radio operators in the United States and Canada and is designed to test communications in abnormal conditions while introducing the public to amateur radio. ARRL describes Field Day as ham radio’s open house and says the exercise takes place on the fourth full weekend in June. The league also says the 2026 theme was “Amateur Radio: A National Resource.”

At the center of the demonstration was a simple point with real emergency value: amateur stations can operate without the internet and phone systems and can be set up in minutes. That makes the exercise a public lesson in how messages can still get through when power lines are down, cell networks are overloaded or wired internet is unavailable. Small portable gear, batteries, generators and satellite connections can keep stations on the air when ordinary systems fail.

For Morgan County, the backdrop was not theoretical. The National Weather Service said severe storms on May 20, 2025 brought golf ball to tennis ball sized hail to parts of Morgan and Sangamon counties and confirmed six weak tornadoes in the region. NWS historical records also show that a June 14, 1957 tornado crossed the eastern portions of Jacksonville and caused significant or total roof damage to 40 buildings.

ARRL says Amateur Radio Emergency Service volunteers provide communications support when disaster strikes, and the league has documented amateur-radio volunteers in the field during tornado-warned storms in New England in September 2025 and during Southern California firestorms in January 2025. Those examples matched the message at Prairieland Heritage Museum, where visitors could watch operators work, ask questions and see how licensing and equipment fit into disaster readiness.

The local setting gave the event a familiar frame. By placing the demonstration at a Jacksonville landmark, the club tied emergency communications to a place Morgan County residents know, and to a skill set that can matter most when storms, outages or other disasters leave ordinary systems silent.