Members of the Middle Peninsula Amateur Radio Club will join other ham radio operators across the U.S. in celebrating Field Day this weekend, setting up shop at Abingdon Park. The simulated emergency exercise starts around 9 a.m. Saturday and ends on Sunday afternoon. Field Day is an emergency communication preparedness exercise in which, operators “go off the grid” and run on an alternative power source that would be used in an actual weather or disaster-related emergency. Often, Emergency Operations Centers, or EOCs, are set up to test the resiliency of back-up emergency communications. Club members plan to be on the air for 24 hours participating with over 30,000 other operators in the nation. The public and government officials are welcome to stop by and visit during the event. Here, club members Michael Ghant, at left, and Bobby Forrest make contact with other ham operators at a previous event. ...