Ham radio is alive and well in Clark County

Imagine this: A major storm has hit Clark County. Thousands of homes are with­out elec­tric­i­ty. Several cell tow­ers have been knocked out. Landlines are down. Internet con­nec­tiv­i­ty is spot­ty. Even the local radio sta­tions are strug­gling to stay on the air.

With no out­side com­mu­ni­ca­tion, where do you turn for news and offi­cial announce­ments? Besides first respon­ders and emer­gency man­age­ment personnel—who have their hands full deal­ing with the disaster—who can com­mu­ni­cate with the out­side world and keep local res­i­dents informed with impor­tant updates?

It can be hard to imag­ine in this age, when we car­ry around devices that allow instant com­mu­ni­ca­tion world­wide, but when we lose Internet con­nec­tiv­i­ty, our smart­phones and oth­er con­nect­ed devices become use­less. In this sce­nario, it’s a tech­nol­o­gy over 100 years old that can come to the res­cue and pro­vide crit­i­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tions that can save lives.

It’s called ama­teur (ham) radio.

Here in Clark County, the recent­ly formed Midland Trail Radio Club is a group of ham radio enthu­si­asts who meet month­ly and con­duct field days and oth­er activ­i­ties relat­ed to the hobby.

Last year, the club held its first American Radio League (ARRL) field day event. Demonstrating their abil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate over long dis­tances when no elec­tric ser­vice is avail­able, club mem­bers con­tact­ed over 200 fel­low ham oper­a­tors across the con­ti­nen­tal U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico, and Alaska, using bat­tery-pow­ered equip­ment and portable antennas.

WinCity Voices recent­ly met with two mem­bers of the club, Brian Phillips and Austin Parsons. The first thing we want­ed to know is this: what exact­ly is ham radio, and how does it dif­fer from the oth­er well-known form of ama­teur radio com­mu­ni­ca­tions, CB (citizen’s band) radio?

It turns out that the key dif­fer­ences are par­tic­i­pant require­ments and the scope of communication.

Obtaining an ama­teur radio license requires pass­ing an FCC test with a score of 75% or greater, with 3 lev­els: Technician, General, and Extra. Ham radio uti­lizes dig­i­tal modes, HF, VHF, and UHF, and is dis­tinct from sim­pler com­mu­ni­ca­tion meth­ods like CB or walkie-talkies. As such, there are more modes of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and much longer ranges with ham radio.

The license require­ment is tied to ama­teur radio’s role in emer­gency ser­vices and to pow­er lim­i­ta­tions, with the club serv­ing as the county’s ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service) coördinator.

The club has indi­vid­u­als trained as Sky Warn spot­ters through the National Weather Service and is FEMA-trained to deploy in sit­u­a­tions like the Eastern Kentucky flood­ing, where ham radio oper­a­tors were essen­tial for com­mu­ni­ca­tion after cell tow­ers failed.

But even unli­censed cit­i­zens can lis­ten to ama­teur radio broad­casts using inex­pen­sive, read­i­ly avail­able radios. This can become cru­cial in emer­gen­cies such as the one described at the start of this article.

Formed in June 2025 at an ARRL Field Day event, the club’s main pur­pos­es are to fos­ter fun, edu­ca­tion, and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice. In addi­tion to its reg­u­lar mem­ber­ship, it offers an unli­censed mem­ber­ship cat­e­go­ry for those who plan to obtain their license with­in one year.

The club is work­ing to estab­lish a pri­vate sta­tion to link direct­ly to the Emergency Operations Center in Frankfort.

Phillips not­ed that Winchester may­or Jo Ellen Reed was impressed by their pub­lic Field Day event, lead­ing to a request that the club present to city and coun­ty lead­ers on how it can serve the coun­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Emergency Management Agency and the EOC. Phillips is also involved with the EOC as an EFS2 (Communication Specialist) in a neigh­bor­ing coun­ty and hopes to estab­lish a sim­i­lar group in Clark County to pro­vide back­up com­mu­ni­ca­tion if phone lines fail.

Parsons told us about plans to offer pub­lic class­es on gen­er­al ham radio and emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions in the near future.

The club meets month­ly on the sec­ond Monday at 6:30 PM at Rosemary Brooks Place, and any inter­est­ed res­i­dents are invit­ed to attend. The group has obtained 501(c)(3) non­prof­it sta­tus and accepts pub­lic dona­tions to sup­port its activ­i­ties. Donors may send checks payable to “Midland Trail Radio Club” either mailed to 7904 Ironworks Road, Winchester, KY 40391, or in per­son at any meeting.

The club has a web­site and Facebook page where con­tact infor­ma­tion and more details can be found.