Photo Credit: Edmee Rodriguez / News-Leader
|
|
Dwayne Walker, whose FCC-licensed call letters are
WB5PLJ, makes an antenna out of two shopping carts.
Photo Credit: Edmee Rodriguez / News-Leader |
Static poured from the radio speakers as Bill Chambers bellowed into the hand-held microphone.
"Calling CQ. CQ. This is Kilowatt, Zero, Sierra out of Springfield, Mo. We're conducting a strange-antenna challenge. Anyone there? Over."
"Copy Kilo, Zero, Sierra," a man's voice thundered from the metal box. "You're coming through loud and clear here in Philly."
Chambers smiled. He scribbled notes on a piece of paper as the man in the radio identified himself as Harry from Philadelphia.
Small talk quickly gave way to shop talk. How many watts were Springfield operators using, Harry asked? What kind of terrain were they broadcasting from? What kind of antenna had they rigged?
"Right now we're using an extension ladder and a multipurpose ladder," Chambers said.
"Works just fine," Harry replied.
Members of the Southwest Missouri Amateur Radio Club gathered outside Evangel University Saturday morning to practice their homeland-security communication skills. The goal: Construct makeshift antennas to use if real ones are destroyed during a terrorist attack or natural disaster, such as Sunday's melee of tornadoes.
"What you're not going to see here is anything considered to be a normal antenna - basically anything that's wire or pipe," said Erik Weaver, SMARC president.
Throughout the day, the radio operators planned to use metal ladders, shopping carts, motorcycles, cars and metal dollies to capture signals and conduct broadcasts.
"We'll try all kinds of things. We used a dog kennel just for practice and we talked with people in New York and Maryland," Weaver said, adding that almost anything metal can be used as an antenna. "Put it this way: If they had a ham-radio operator on Gilligan's Island, they wouldn't have had a show."
Operators also used alternative power sources, such as batteries and portable generators.
Within two hours Saturday, the group had spoken with other operators from Oregon, Pennsylvania, Florida, California and Arizona. Many times, the signals will reach around the world.
"The excitement comes when you're sitting in front of your little box and then - BAM - you're talking with someone in Australia," Weaver said.
There are about 700,000 licensed operators in the United States, more than a thousand of those in Greene County.
Immediately following a disaster, ham radios can be the only means of communication because land and cellular phone lines are often knocked out, said operator Lance Riffle of Springfield.
On Monday, Riffle was dispatched to Stockton, where a tornado ravaged most of the downtown. He relieved two operators from Nevada, Mo., who went to Stockton immediately after the twister struck.
"We were communicating with the Red Cross Headquarters about a mile or two down the road," Riffle said. "(Emergency crews) were having problems with their cell communications."
Spotting a storm, finding lost children and locating downed airplanes are just a few of the functions of a ham-radio operator, who must be licensed by the Federal Communications Commission. Operators were used following the crash of the Space Shuttle Columbia in Texas and at Ground Zero following the Sept. 11 attacks in New York.
"We serve the community," said Lee Shafer of Springfield, noting that amateur radio operators have been among the people driving new communication technology.
Added operator Woodie Moore: "We were using cell phones at least two decades before anyone else. ... This is the world's biggest group of nerds."
Moore, who is Evangel's director of library services, said amateur radio encompasses several educational disciplines: language, chemistry, physics, political science and geography.
"It's been around for a hundred years and it's still piquing interest," he said.