DEARNE Valley Venture has become the first organisation in the country to be licensed to operate the latest digital communications equipment.

And Dearne youngsters are being trained as skilled operators of the D-Star Repeater System - digital amateur radio which will be invaluable if there is a national disaster.

“This is groundbreaking technology and our youngsters are being up-skilled by learning how to use it,” said Walt Bridgen, who led the Dearne e-learning net until recently.

“Communication links need to be set up quickly in an emergency and the only reliable ones are amateur radios.

“Everything you can do on the Internet, you can do on the radio, but in a time of national disaster mobile phones will be useless as they are linked to a mast and then go underground through cables.”

There are only a few pieces of the equipment in operation - ten in the United States, eight in Japan and one in Kent which is Japanese owned. The only other one is with DVV, Bolton-upon-Dearne and will be available to the Dearne Valley community thanks to funding from South Yorkshire Community Foundation.

A ten week foundation course for the amateur radio licence is being run for youngsters at the Hickleton Youth Project in Thurnscoe by Ernie Bailey, one of the country’s leading authorities on amateur radio systems and a member of South Yorkshire Repeater Group for 30 years. He is running a second one for DVV at the Dearne Renaissance Centre.

“Until now we’ve used analogue technology, but this is the first piece of digital equipment and will provide video data,” said Mr Bailey.

“People don’t realise how close we’ve been to losing half the power in the country, which is why amateur radios have such an important role in world-wide communication. We have a tracking system at a safe high point in the area which can take over if there is a national disaster.”