Longview, TX — Longview and East Texas area ham radio operators are scheduled to participate Saturday and Sunday in a nationwide public demonstration of emergency communications capabilities.

Todd Hoover, spokesman for the Longview East Texas Amateur Radio Club, said despite the Internet, cell phones, email and modern communications, every year whole regions find themselves in the dark. “Tornadoes, fires, storms, ice and even the occasional cutting of fiberoptic cables leave people without the means to communicate,” he said. “In these cases, the one consistent service that has never failed has been amateur radio.”

These radio operators provide backup communications for everything from the American Red Cross to FEMA and even for the International Space Station, he said.

“Longview’s ‘hams’ will join with thousands of other amateur radio operators showing their emergency capabilities” this weekend, he said. “The public will have a chance to meet and talk with Longview’s ham radio operators and see for themselves what the amateur radio service is about.

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