The Bolesławiec Radio Amateurs’ Club has been operating in Bolesławiec for many years. Municipal officials provided our radio amateurs with premises housing an amateur digital communications node. It provides a connection between southern and western Europe, Poland and the entire East, including Asia.
– We collect information transmitted digitally by radio amateurs on computers and pass it on, for example to the relevant services – explains Kazimierz Kędzierski.
Why is it important for a radio amateur network to operate here? – The commercial network is unreliable, but ours is not; it operates continuously, regardless of the weather or atmospheric disturbances – stresses K. Kędzierski. – When there was a flood a few years ago, all telephone services, both landline and mobile, failed – adds Zbigniew Fuchs.
– In emergency situations, we can access any network: the police, military and fire service networks. Through our network, we can pass on the information these services need – says Kazimierz Kędzierski. – We can then operate on any frequency, even on commercial radio stations.
Radio amateurs provide the services with information about the weather, natural disasters and accidents. But that is not all. They also promote our city, which was appreciated by mayor Piotr Roman, who awarded them a prize for promoting Bolesławiec in 2014. As we read on the municipal office’s website, “in 2013, the club operating within the Polish Amateur Radio Union organised, during the Bolesławiec Ceramics Festival, an event involving contacts with radio amateurs from around the world, including via satellite communications. As part of the event, special cards confirming the contacts made were issued; their content promoted Bolesławiec and the Bolesławiec Ceramics Festival.”
More information about the activities of radio amateurs is available on the website of the Lower Silesian Branch of the Polish Amateur Radio Union.
