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EAGLE SCOUTS WIN NATIONAL AWARDS FOR HOMELAND SECURITY PROJECTS

With September declared as “National Preparedness Month” by the Dept. of Homeland Security, two Carolina Eagle Scouts appropriately have won the highest national awards in Amateur Radio, providing emergency communications options for their communities.

Grant Morine of Wilmington, North Carolina and Greg Davis of Florence, South Carolina, both 17 years old, have been recognized for separate projects in which each built equipment that permits hospitals and Red Cross chapters to get on-the-air when other forms of communications fail or are overwhelmed in disasters. 

Grant Morine was named “Young Ham Of  The Year” by a consortium of industry experts for his project of designing and supervising the building of thirty indoor emergency back-up antennas for hospitals and Red Cross chapters in coastal North and South Carolina.  Meanwhile, Greg Davis directed a series of public health emergency communications projects for hospitals and the Red Cross in the Florence area.  For his efforts, Greg won the Hiram Percy Maxim Award, named after the founder of ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio.  Of the nation’s 650,000 licensed Amateur, or ”Ham”, Radio operators, an estimated 30,000 are under age 18.

Ham radio is best known for its emergency communications capabilities after disasters when landline phones, cellular phone and the internet cease to operate.  Regulated by the FCC, ham radio has been part of the Dept. of Homeland Security’s Citizens Corps since 2003.  In 2006, President Bush signed a law that all state and federal emergency communications plans must include a ham radio response component.  Ham operators provided vital communications following Hurricane Katrina, the massive Northeast Blackout of 2003 and the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  “Hams” is the nickname for Amateur Radio operators as the service is classified by the FCC, with the word “Amateur” meaning the operators cannot receive compensation for their services.

 Ham radio is different from other public forms of two-way communications in that each operator has to pass a written examination to earn their license.  There are no age restrictions in obtaining a ham radio license.  Both Grant and Greg earned their first licenses at age 11.  Grant leans towards the design and theory of antenna building, and won three previous science fairs with ham radio antenna projects.  He captured the 2004 North Carolina Science Fair state title with an antenna project.  Greg enjoys operating ham radio, and is proficient is Morse Code, a mode no longer required for licensing but still used extensively by operators for long distance contacts.  Besides being dubbed “the original chat room” by operators, the FCC encourages experimentation within ham radio frequencies.  Many of the communications technologies used today – like FM, mobile telephones and VoIP – were first developed through ham radio.

As part of his “Young Ham Of The Year” prize package, Grant won a week at the U.S. Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama and a radio transceiver (combination transmitter-receiver) from Yaesu, a major ham radio equipment manufacturer.  With the Hiram Percy Maxim Award, Greg received an honorarium of $1,500.00.

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