Amateur radio operators 'hamming it up'
By Rachel R. Basinger FOR THE TRIBUNE REVIEW Sunday, August 4, 2002

Nobody knows exactly where ham radio got its name, but one local amateur radio operator has his thoughts on the matter. "The closest thing I can come up with is that when you have a ham actor, that's someone who's not a very good actor," said Alex Tinker Jr. "Well, we're not professional radio operators; we're just amateurs, so we're hamming it up." Whether that's true or not, it is safe to say the members of the Coke Center Radio Club in Connellsville enjoy their hobby of operating ham radios. In fact, all of them have radios in their houses and in their cars. Members are not sure exactly when the club was started, but they do believe it dates back to the 1950s. "I believe it's been going off and on since the 1950s," said Glenn Bell, president of the club, who has been a part of the organization for about 20 years. Besides Bell, Art Krumanacker and Bill Warmuth also have been in the club for about 20 years. The club meets the second Tuesday of the month and although radio operating is mostly a hobby for its participants, it plays a vital role in emergency situations. All the members of the club also belong to the Amateur Radio Emergency Service group, which has more than 25,000 amateurs nationwide who have volunteered to provide communication links for governmental agencies or nonprofit organizations when needed. According to Warmuth, the last big emergency that members of the Coke Center Radio Club volunteered their services was for flooding on the West Side in Connellsville. Before that it was the Johnstown flood in 1977, and in between those times they have participated in many weather exercises as recent as this past month. If communications go down among emergency crews, ham radio operators, who are all licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, offer their services. "There's city radio, police radio, ambulance radio (and other emergency management frequencies), and if they break down, we're here," said Warmuth. "We're not just the backup for local communications, but also countywide, nationwide and global." Warmuth admitted that the club's role in emergency management backups has been limited lately because the county and state have good systems. Now the organization's main role is helping with communication between shelters if a disaster occurs where shelters need to be set up. Amateur radio operators could be working alongside the American Red Cross or the Salvation Army in those situations. Ham radio operators also get messages out to family members from a loved one who might be hurt or in that shelter. "The police or firemen are not going to use their radios to relay messages to individuals, but we would," said Bell, who added that every evening there's a traffic net where messages are relayed. For example, if a person is in a shelter in Connellsville and is trying to reach a loved one in London, that person would fill out a form with the message to be sent. In return, the ham radio operator would get on the radio during the traffic net and post it on the state net, which would then post it on the international net where a ham operator in London could pick it up. That ham operator would then take the message and phone or mail it to the loved one. The club meets in the second-floor offices at the Connellsville Street Department garage on West South Street. "We're so happy with our local government officials on the city level," said Warmuth. "They voted to let us meet there and they also approved CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) funds so that we could purchase our equipment." The only thing that's a little disheartening to the members is the decline in young people interested in being an amateur radio operator. "The young kids that are interested in science today are drawn to computers," said Bell, who told of going to the five-and-dime store back in the 1950s and purchasing a device with a crystal in it for just 25 cents. "All you had to do was hook up an antenna, headphones and a pair of grounds and you could hear the local radio station," he said. Krumanacker said that his son-in-law asked him why he would want to go through the trouble of hooking up an antenna and learning Morse code when he could talk to anyone around the world on the computer. "It was just a hobby of mine to build my own radios to communicate across the country and see how far I could communicate," said Krumanacker. Warmuth also pointed out that in an emergency situation when the power is out and the computer won't work, a ham radio will. "We can operate on emergency power," said Warmuth, who cited a generator as their source. Bell said he has storage batteries and solar cells on his roof at home that will allow him to operate his radio when there are no other power sources available. Ham radio operators have their own chat room of sorts. They can get on the radio and send out a general inquiry and any other ham radio operators who might be listening can get on and converse with that person. Bell has been a licensed operator since 1951 and Krumanacker and Warmuth have been licensed since 1962. Bob Rose, another club member, got into radio operating when he went into the armed services in 1944. He operated a radio on a B-17 bomber in the Army Air Force. Rose said he got his license for operating a ham radio when he came home. Tinker Jr. got his license just because "it's fun." According to Bell, anyone interested in getting an amateur radio operating license can obtain a book at Radio Shack that gives sample test questions. The Uniontown Amateur Radio Club is the closest place where the FCC test is administered, according to Bell. Rachel R. Basinger can be reached at [email protected].

This feature appeared in the August 4, 2002 issue of The Tribune-Review.

© 2002, The Tribune-Review. Reprinted with permission.

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