MARK WAITE / PVT Jerry Fuge stands and watches as Dick Grady, left, and George Cox try to contact other ham operators during the annual 24-hour field day. Advertisement

Ham radio operator Jerry Fuge was sitting in a trailer in the Pahrump Nugget casino parking lot Saturday afternoon calling out the message, waiting for a response: "Two foxtrot Nevada," using the call letters W7NYE.

Dick Grady was fiddling with the dial on another ultra-high frequency radio set, listening on the headphones for calls from other amateur radio operators anywhere between 3,500 and 28,500 kilohertz, covering the whole ham radio band.

Radio traffic was light when the event started at noon Saturday, but by the time the Southern Nye County Amateur Radio Emergency Service Inc. group finished the annual field day exercise 24 hours later, at noon Sunday, they had made 181 contacts, 20 more than last year.

"Two foxtrot Nevada" means they had two radios, operating out of an emergency operations center from Nevada, said club member George Cox. The call letters W7NYE stands for the local ARES club.

"It starts out slow and as the night goes on it gets busier," he said.

The messages exchanged were usually pretty brief, giving the frequency, time, station, call sign and little else. Club members can trace their location once they return home to their logs.

Members participating in the field day have only an hour and a half to set up equipment under the emergency rules, which the local club chose to follow, said club member Steve Bird.

The local club contacted other radio hams as far away as the East Coast and Hawaii, he said.

The field day is the climax of a week long "Amateur Radio Week" sponsored by the National Association for Amateur Radio. More than 34,000 amateur radio operators across the country participated in last years event.

Southern Nye County ARES has 35 members, Fuge said. They help monitor communications during the Baker to Vegas run in April, the Pony Express reenactment in September and the Best In the Desert Vegas to Reno race.

Club member Ron Daviau said they'll help during the planned endurance horse run by the Pahrump-Las Vegas Distance Riders Club this year.

The club was put into action during the power blackouts in Pahrump Jan. 13, 2007, and again three days later.