When all else fails … amateur radio.

Audrain Emergency Communications Incorporated stands by that saying because in an emergency situation, when there is no power, no cellular towers and limited contact, the group will be there to step in and help.

The AECI dusted off its emergency communications trailer and took it out to Lakeview Park June 28 where they set up shop for 24 hours of making contacts all over the world during its annual Field Day.

Kenny Fairchild (KE0DUO) serves as the AECI treasurer. He is in charge of the emergency communications trailer and organizing Field Day.

“Field Day is an annual event and it's been around for a long time,” Fairchild said. “It’s a contest but it’s also we’re testing our equipment and different ways of contacting people.”

The event, also known as the American Radio Relay League’s Field Day, is a North American event where amateur radio operators make as many contacts as possible in a day.

“It’s supposed to be 24 hours, which is 1 o’clock today all the way through the night,” AECI secretary Greg Bryson (N0VYE) said.

But they don’t always make it that long.

Bryson and AECI club president Jeff Carlyle (KD0QCN) said they were out in the park until about 3 a.m. last year when they finally had to call it quits.

The AECI set up its trailer June 27 so they could secure a good spot at the campgrounds and make sure all their equipment was in working order.

By 1 p.m. on June 28, Bryson and Carlyle were on the air simultaneously making digital and audio connections.

Last year, the AECI made about 65 connections between the two forms of radio communication, which isn’t a lot but bad weather made for some really poor connections.

Carlyle said that this year, the bands are good and clear so he felt they should be able to surpass that pretty easily.

Amateur radio operators provide a direct link between local agencies and state and federal emergency management. They also help connect families who are separated by disaster.

“We are ‘amateur’ radio operators and it’s such a misrepresentation,” Fairchild said. "We are amateurs because we don’t get paid for what we do.”

The emergency trailer started as a dream and an empty trailer. Over the years, the AECI added radio equipment and a 65' pneumatic mast that can hold different kinds of antennas.

“There are all different types of communication we can use out of that trailer,” Fairchild said.

Since everything is mobile, the AECI would not be limited to Audrain County should they be needed elsewhere.

“If something happened like a Joplin, Missouri, event, we could actually take that trailer, tow it down there and, as long as we didn’t have an emergency here, operate it for different agencies around the state,” Fairchild said.

Bryson said that in an emergency, the goal is to be up and running within an hour of arriving.

There are four emergency communications trailers in the state of Missouri that the AECI used as a rudimentary blueprint for theirs.

“We kind of drew from their expertise and what they had done but we kind of expanded it,” he said.

The trailer is a “robust system,” complete with air conditioning and heating, and includes a pull-out couch, bathroom, shower, generator and a kitchenette.

“We tried to make it as close to an all weather piece of equipment as possible,” Fairchild said.

The most difficult part about putting the trailer together, Fairchild said, was deciding which radios to use and what modes of communications were most important.

“Ameteur radio is so diverse,” he said. “We had to figure out what we needed to do what we wanted for the community.”

Winlink was an absolutely nonnegotiable form of communication they had to include because it is how the AECI communicates with the state.

“It’s actually email but there is no internet,” Fairchild said. “If we did not have electricity, did not have internet, we could still send emails because it’s all done over the radio waves.”

AECI members continue to sharpen their skills and grow their club. They host regular meetings at the Help Center, monthly breakfasts at Stacey’s Place and have recently sent letters personally inviting local ham radio operators to join their club.

“There has always been an ebb and flow,” Carlyle said. “We’re at 27 members so that’s pretty impressive especially for a county our size to have that many members who are active.”