OUTREACH Category

Content related to activities intended to promote or advocate for Amateur Radio to the public, our government, and our served agencies.

Amateur Radio Helps Locate Missing Mother and Son

Amateur radio had a crucial role in locating a mother and her 9-year son lost in California’s Stanislaus National Forest. On Friday July 11, 2025, the pair was reported overdue from a day trip to Camp Wolfeboro, a popular scout camp in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, according to a news release.

On Saturday July 12, the Calaveras County Volunteer Search and Rescue Team (SAR) was conducting its monthly training exercise along the Stanislaus River when members received notification that Tami and son Stirling had been reported missing since Friday afternoon and were not answering their cell phones.

There's promotion ... and then there's Amateur Radio

In the community of radio amateurs scattered around the planet we have a habit of getting together with others to have fun in whatever shape that takes. The obvious ones are HAMfests, car boot sales, raffles and other amateur adjacent pursuits, but we also do things like licence training, weekly on-air nets, contesting, portable activations, climbing mountains, or hills, setting-up in parks, or lighthouses, we set-up on a field day, just for fun, and find excuses, sorry, reasons, for any number of other activities.

Some of these are solitary affairs, but many are best enjoyed shared with multiple friends, both old and new ones. Having been a member of this community since 2010 I’ve come to observe an aspect of this community that is odd, to say the least.