California Ham Helps District Prepare for Emergency

By Sharon Cotal
scotal@the-signal.com

Signal Staff Writer

Tuesday October 16, 2007



When Art Edwards taught at Hart High School in California, then later at Canyon, he would use his amateur (ham) radio as a tool to teach Spanish, and during the course of his 39 years as a teacher he made contact with every Spanish-speaking country in the world.

Now that he's retired, the Canyon Country resident is working with the William S. Hart Union High School District to develop a communications system that will work in the event of an emergency or natural disaster.

"The school district didn't really have any way to communicate in the event of a disaster," Edwards said. "So the idea is to have a cadre of ham radio operators, with two at each school in the district and also at the administrative offices."

Bob Weber, coordinator of risk management for the district, sent out e-mail messages to district personnel asking if anyone would be interested in learning to operate a ham radio and becoming licensed. He expected a couple of people to respond.

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