Members of the Santa Fe Trail Amateur Radio Club will be converging on the grounds of the Lanesfield School Museum southwest of Gardner on Saturday to participate in a special event that will enable them to share "a little bit of Johnson County history" with the rest of the United States.
Located at 18745 S. Dillie Road, the museum that now occupies the former limestone schoolhouse transports visitors back to the day when a majority of America's children were educated in a one-room schoolhouse where the 3 Rs were taught. Constructed in 1869, the school was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
Working from the shelter house adjacent to the Visitors Center south of the museum, club members will be on the air for five hours, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., during which time they plan to make contact with as many other amateur radio operators, or 'hams', as possible using two voice stations and a continuous wave, or Morse Code, station. One of the voice stations will operate on 40 meters and the other on 20 meters, although either one, according to event coordinator Jim Andera, call sign K0NK, could be "moved up" to 17 meters "part of the time, just depending on how propagation is." The CW station will operate on 30 meters.
"Through the efforts of the SFTARC operators, other ham radio operators from around the country will be able to 'visit' the Lanesfield School over the air and learn a little bit about this piece of history that is tucked away on a gravel road in rural Johnson County," Andera observed.
Both the museum and the visitors center will be open from 1 to 5 p.m. on Saturday.
For more information about the amateur radio club, visit www.sftarc.org, and for more information about the museum, visit www.jocogov.org/facility/lanesfield-historic-site.