The group has about 20 regular members who get together once a month to talk all things radio.

Amateur radio is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchanging of messages.

Wimmera Amateur Radio Group member Andrew Squires has been involved since he moved to Horsham more than 30 years ago.

He said amateur radio was an essential part of emergency service communications and was sometimes the only form of communication during natural disasters.

"If a disaster was to happen, and infrastructure did collapse, then the only form of communications would be amateur radio," Mr Squires said.

"When Cyclone Tracy hit, the only communication they had out of Darwin was amateur radio. All the communications were done on short waves, so it's an important disaster tool."

He said amateur radio technology was always evolving.

"Amateur radio has a real historical presence going right back to (Italian inventor Guglielmo) Marconi. It's not citizens band radio - a lot of people confuse it with that," he said.

"We have access to the most fantastic radio bands all over the spectrum, from very low frequencies up to very high frequencies.

"It's morphed into digital connections - it's now computers connected to computers sending radio waves.

"We used to have radios in our cars and be able to talk to people all over the world.

"We can still do that, but now people can sit in their cars and talk on their mobile phones to people all over the world just as easily."

The Wimmera Amateur Radio Group meets at the Horsham State Emergency Services building once a month.

"We discuss the latest radios, which is the obvious thing. Somebody always brings in their newest radio or talks about the next radio they plan on buying," he said.

"The other thing we do is have field days where we go out into the countryside and communicate Australia-wide or world-wide. It's basically practice for emergency communications."

The group participated in the John Moyle Memorial Field Day last month.

Over the years the group has built its own infrastructure, including numerous repeaters around the Wimmera.

"There's a string of them on Mt. William. There's also one in Horsham at the SES building and one on Mt Arapiles. They have a radius that can reach from the South Australian border to Stawell," he said.

"We have a link system where our repeater in Horsham is linked via the internet to the repeater on Mt William. That's then linked to the repeater in Ballarat, which is linked to a repeater in Melbourne.

"So you can be driving around Horsham in your car and talking to someone in Melbourne on the radio - it's a really sophisticated set-up."

Group treasurer Andrew Janetzki said the repeater located at the Horsham SES building had recently been upgraded.

"We recently attached a UPS (uninterruptible power supply), which is basically a battery for 240 volts, so it still allows us to keep using the repeater when the power does go out," he said.

Mr Squires said members of the group varied in age and background, but mainly lived in Horsham and Dimboola.

"We have someone who works for Telstra, someone else works for the government fixing computers, and a retired teacher ... it's a real mixture of people who share the same interest, and anyone is welcome to come along and see if it's of interest to them," he said.

"We have had some members from Stawell and Ararat over the years, but they don't come anymore.

"We usually find our members are people who have been fiddling with electronics their whole lives and quite often they've wanted to get an amateur radio licence, but haven't had the chance to."

Mr Squires said it required a lot of work to get an amateur radio licence.

"To get access to the frequencies you have to sit a series of exams," he said.

"First you've got sit a theory exam. Then you also have to pass the exam on regulations set by the Australian Communications and Media Authority. It also helps to have a good grounding in electronics.

"We used to have an exam for Morse code, but they got rid of that which is just as well because it was really outdated.

"Getting your licence basically gives you access to experiment with radio waves."

He said the club could help people get their licence and had access to examiners.

The group meets at the Horsham State Emergency Services building at 54 McPherson Street on the first Monday of every month at 7.30pm.

The frequency for the group's repeater located at the Horsham SES building is 439.7 MHz.

To learn more about to group, head to its website.

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