By Stephen Smoot
Almost 120 years ago in the earliest days of the technology, Albert S. Hyman, Bob Almy, and Poogie Murray of the Harvard Radio Club established the first amateur wireless radio broadcast station in the world. They gave their operation the call sign of HYMAN-ALMY-MURRAY.
Or HAM for short.
For almost 12 decades since, amateur radio enthusiasts have built an entire culture around first developing technology, protocols, and global networks of users. In recent decades, however, HAM radio users have put more effort into recruiting the next generations of operators, fearing that modern information and broadcasting systems will create a perception that HAM radio is obsolete – even though it remains a reliable failsafe means of communication during emergencies.
Last Sunday, Living Faith Church hosted a HAM radio event that brought together enthusiasts, emergency operations officials, and Boy and Cub Scouts. The occasion for the event was the annual Boy Scouts of America Jamboree on the Air, open to all divisions of Cub and Boy Scouts, as well as girls.
As the Boy Scouts of America website explained “Jamboree-on-the-Air, or JOTA, is the largest Scouting event in the world. It is held annually the third full weekend in October. JOTA uses amateur radio to link Scouts and hams around the world, around the nation, and in your own community.”
A pack of excited and eager elementary school children, in equal numbers of boys and girls, some adorned in their Scout uniforms, attended the session held by the Potomac Headwaters Amateur Radio Association. Their president, Mike Turner, was present, as well as Eddie Caplinger, vice president, and a group of members, including Darren Hedrick and Larry Burns.
Bruce Minor attended as well, representing Pendleton County Emergency Services. The Pendleton County emergency operations mobile command center was also on hand.
Scouts learned of the fun uses of HAM radio while hearing that they might get to communicate with other Scouts in West Virginia and across the nation. They learned of the three tiers of licenses available, technician, general, and amateur extra class. From the entry level to the highest class, each opens access to more of the radio band.
Burns shared that children as young as seven and nine had earned licenses in the initial level, that of technician. Fees associated with testing and licenses remain very affordable.
Scouts also learned of the essential parts of connecting operators in Pendleton County with others across the nation and around the world.
Especially in Pendleton County, HAM radio has a close connection with emergency operations and disaster response. The timing of the Jamboree on the Air event also came hard on the heels of the disastrous effects of Hurricane Helene in the southern Appalachians.
As Caplinger, Minor, Hedrick, and others explained, HAM radio service played a vital role in emergency response. Hedrick told the Scouts that “one of the first things that breaks” in a severe weather incident such as a hurricane “is the cell towers.”
He added, “We’re the backbone of disaster emergency communications.”
Burns shared two uses of “nets” or groups of people worldwide who congregate on broadcasts and even help each other. He explained how he used a HAM radio and helpful operators manning relays to speak with his family at home as he fought in the Vietnam War.
He then shared how HAM radio saved a life. Burns explained that a “maritime service net” group of users interested in oceanic operations connected with a one man private fishing boat on the Atlantic. The boat operator had both lost power and was having a heart attack. HAM radio users connected him with the United States Coast Guard and the nearest local hospital.
The team effort saved the man’s life. Burns said, “I thought that was kind of neat.”
Others told stories from the years of 1985 and 2024 of HAM radio operators in storm-stricken mountains ensuring that emergency officials coordinating responses had the proper and most updated information.
Scouts learned that even with the wide range of digital era communications in 2024, that the North Carolina State Police had to rely on HAM radio operators for all of their information in flooded out zones at first. Burns added that many used HAM radio connections to the internet to get photos of damage to insurance companies, expediting the processing of claims.
Although Scouts also learned of a number of fun and entertaining uses for HAM radio, Minor returned the conversation to emergency services when he explained “the purpose is to help people when they need it, people helping people and getting the necessary data out to people.”
