Ham radio operators communicate with world

Clara Garcia News-Bulletin Staff Writer; cgarcia@news-bulletin.com

Belen At 17 years old, Phil Shaw of Tierra Grande already has a sprawling network of contacts around the world. Shaw isn't your typical teenager who is always on his cell phone texting his friends, or on the Internet using Facebook or MySpace to contact his "network." He's one of many amateur radio operators, also known as hams, who participated in this year's National Field Day for Amateur Radio on Saturday.

As a member of the Valencia County Amateur Radio Association (VCARA), Shaw, and dozens of other people, participated in the annual event held at Willie Chavez State Park in Belen. Amateur radio stations are set up across the world on the last Saturday in June by operators to test their general emergency preparedness skills.

Operators spent 24 hours, from Saturday noon to Sunday noon, making contacts and honing their skills in operating an emergency station.

Shaw, who was recently named Young Ham of the Year by the American Radio Relay League, became a member of the local organization when he was only 13 years old. "I was nominated for the award," Shaw said. "I got my technician license three years ago during Christmas, and a year later, I upgraded to my general license."

He was nominated by two members of the local group, who recognized his dedication to the field and his willingness to help his peers and those younger than he is learn what amateur radio is all about. Shaw said he has been promoting the hobby at several events during the year including the Kids Roundup.

"I'll help set up stations, which are open for kids to drop in and make contacts, and give them information about ham radio," Shaw said.

Shaw became interested in amateur radio thanks to his mother, who saw an article about a workshop given by the Valencia County Amateur Radio Association in the newspaper. He said while there was a lot of studying involved, he was excited about the work and was happy when he passed the test.

"Ralph Clark (a VCARA member) helped me out a lot, and gave me a lot of opportunities to improve my own experience and help others, and I've just been trying to return the favor to him by helping out," said Shaw, a sophomore at the University of New Mexico majoring in computer engineering. "A lot of my time is spent at school, so I haven't had a lot of time recently for ham radio. But I will still flip on the radio a couple nights a month and make a contact around the world."

Shaw said the furthest he's been able to make contact was with someone in northern Japan. Clark, whose call sign is NM54C, has been a member of VCARA for 20 years. He said he had always been interested in the sport, but it was when his daughter, Ginger Eldridge (KC5MTI), pushed him to finally get involved that he did.

"It had always been in the back of my mind, and we both got involved," Clark said of his daughter.

Clark said while the annual field day is a social event, it's about helping each other to try new things or different aspects of ham radio. He said the other goal of the event is to practice their emergency assistance communication skills.

Clark explained that the federal government authorizes ham radio through the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for public service and emergency assistance. He also said it was originally used to train radio operators and people in the electronics trade and to promote international good will.

"(Ham radio) is very similar to the radio you receive in your car in that the radio waves go out from your transmitter out into the atmosphere and they're received," Clark explained. "You can do that two ways; one is the line of sight where you have to see things for the radio waves to do that; and the other is when they bounce off the sky and where they come down, nobody knows." Clark and Eldridge are not the only ham radio operators in the family. Eldridge's son, 9-year-old Justin (W8JME), has also become involved in the hobby and spent the night with his grandfather at the field day over the weekend.

There are more than 70,000 ham radio operators in the United States and about 5,600 in New Mexico. One of those includes Chris Gillespie of Bosque Farms.

Gillespie, who has been a member of the VCARA for five years, has been a ham radio operator since 1968. He said he first became interested when his grandfather introduced him to the hobby.

"He was a military radio operator who got interested in amateur radio after he got out of the military," Gillespie said. "I grew up on a ranch in northern New Mexico, and he started me on a CB radio — a citizen's band radio — back then.

"We went from that to amateur radio, and he stayed with his military affiliate radio system," he said. "The difference between amateur radio and citizen's band is the power level and the knowledge of the operator — a ham radio has to be able to work on the equipment and the antennas and pass tests, where a citizens band is pretty much plug and play."

Gillespie, who is a network engineer for New Mexico State Police, said he uses his skills as an amateur radio operator in his career. Recently, state police lost one of its helicopter pilots during a rescue mission, and Gillespie said ham radio operators were utilized to assist in the search for the aircraft.

"Amateur radio, very often, assists them with the ground teams to help them go find the individuals," Gillespie says. "The search and rescue teams were operating on amateur frequencies. They did that because amateur radio's frequency is agile and can change frequencies at will."

While many amateur radio operators continue to work on practicing their emergency skills, others use ham radio as purely entertainment. Paul Ridley of Pueblitos has been an operator for 33 years and a member of the VCARA for about 14.

For Ridley, ham radio is a way to make contacts around the world. To date, Ridley has contacted nearly every country in the world — all except one. "It's taken me about 22 years," Ridley said. "We, the amateur radio operators, use a different criteria to add up countries than the United Nations. We have more countries, and according to our criteria, they may be just a little island out in the pacific."

In all, Ridley has contacted 335 countries around the world. He is still waiting, very patiently, for that elusive radio operator in Mount Athos, a monistary in the middle of Rome.

"There's only one ham radio operator there and his name is Monk Apollo, and he's very contrary and sometimes he'll get on the air and sometimes he won't," Ridley said. "I'm inclined to call him 'The mad monk of Mount Athos,' because he's so elusive."

Ridley said he's been trying to contact Monk Apollo for about two years, but with the time difference, it's a bit difficult.

"It's just a lot of fun," Ridley said. "I'm hoping that none of these guys get him before I do. It would ruin the whole thing for a career guy like me."

Source: News Bulletin.com

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