North Dakota Hams Run a Full Communications Blackout Drill

Every so often it's worth stepping back from the gear and the bands and remembering what this hobby is actually for. This story from southwestern North Dakota is a good reminder.

The Southwestern District Health Unit in Dickinson reached out to local amateur radio advocates recently, and the result was a full communications-blackout exercise run from 1–4 p.m. on Wednesday. The premise was simple and deliberately harsh: no cell phones, no internet, no landlines. Volunteers set out to move information between emergency operations centres in Stark, Bowman, and Adams counties using nothing but radio — and see exactly how far and how fast it actually travelled.

Who's Behind It

Randy Raasch, a long-time military member based in Hettinger, has been involved with the State Line Amateur Radio Club, which covers Bowman, Mott, Regent, Hettinger, and Lodgepole, South Dakota. He explained that hams routinely work alongside local emergency operations centres and governments during emergencies, helping establish communications when it's needed most. Anyone curious about getting involved can reach out through the club website and even shadow an operator to see the process firsthand. More details, along with the club's rotating meeting schedule between Bowman, Hettinger, and Regent, are available at KB0DYA.org. The next meeting is 6:30 p.m. on 17th September at the Cannonball Bar and Restaurant on Main Street in Regent.

On the health side, Ken Musick of the Southwestern District Health Unit — with over 15 years at the organisation, and a General Class amateur himself for the past two years, also a member of the Theodore Roosevelt Amateur Radio Club (K0ND.org) — said the goal was to bring local operators together to demonstrate that these emergency communication skills are actively practised and ready to go. He framed the exercise as preparation for a larger drill down the line, and as a way to strengthen coordination with Bowman and Slope Emergency Management, the Southwestern District Health Unit, and the North Dakota National Guard's civil support team.

No Venue — Just the Airwaves

There's no physical location for an exercise like this; it all happens over radio. Operators started on 2-metre FM — reliable, but line-of-sight only, meaning it doesn't follow the curve of the earth. To get around that limitation, they route through local repeaters: Hettinger, Regent, and Bowman each have one, and Bowman can be electronically linked to Dickinson, letting someone there hear an operator in Hettinger who couldn't otherwise reach them directly. Raasch noted that none of this traffic is encrypted — anyone with a scanner or a radio capable of receiving 2 metres can legally listen in.

The real point of the exercise is finding the gaps: where the network is strong, where it's weak, and what needs fixing before a genuine emergency exposes the problem the hard way. Raasch mentioned that exercises like this were more common before COVID and are only now being revived.

Why It Matters

Raasch pointed to a recent hurricane that made landfall in Florida and went on to devastate inland towns in North Carolina — internet, cell towers, and landlines all down, with roughly a week passing before FEMA arrived. In that gap, he said, amateur radio was the only thing still moving information in or out. He extended the point to infrastructure attacks too, arguing it's only a matter of time before cell towers or the power grid become a target.

As Raasch put it, hams take a certain pride in the fact that "we're here when nobody else is." He was quick to add that none of it is complicated — kids figure it out. His broader point was blunt: if a real outage takes out your phone, landline, and power, your radio, your food and water reserves, and your general self-sufficiency are what get you through — because your debit card, Venmo, and Apple Pay won't be worth much if the infrastructure behind them is down.

Where the Name "HAM" Actually Comes From

As a closing note, Raasch cleared up a bit of hobby trivia: "HAM" isn't an acronym at all. Back before voice communication, everything ran on Morse code, and an operator who pounded too hard on the key was said to be "ham-fisted" — which is where the nickname stuck.