Last Thursday evening the Tyhee Stake (located just north of Chubbuck / Pocatello towards Ft. Hall) hosted a stake preparedness fair and invited the Church’s Emergency Radio Communications (ERC) services to participate. The fair was actually quite well attended. I took this picture just as things were getting underway. There were a number of exhibits (including a very tasty setup with home made wheat bread, home churned butter, and raspberry jam) and several seminars. The ERC set up a couple of ham radio stations in the foyer. We had a few people stop by to talk to us about the equipment we had on display. I took my station to the fair as it’s fairly portable (trying to be a bit punny):
I made several contacts using digital communications, including one into Japan. I had a good time, but came away somewhat frustrated.
- The only people who came by were those that were going through that part of the hallway from their cars or heading home.
- Those that did actually stop already had some knowledge about ham radio. We didn’t have an opportunity to do much education.
I had put together a short slide show that I had running on my iPad. No one stopped to take a look at it, perhaps because that wasn’t convenient.
So, I’ve talked with the fellow who handles the ERC and asked that we do something differently in future preparedness fairs:
- Rather than just set up a couple of ham radio stations, have a booth inside the main hall where everyone is. The attendees in this case were going from right to left past all of the displays. If we were in the traffic flow, we’d have a much better opportunity to tell our story!
- We should be doing a class on emergency communications.
There’ll be more fairs this spring. Maybe we’ll do something more productive at the ones coming up!