Mrs. H. is a Ham

One has to be careful about making porcine references regarding one's spouse. This is the one exception: when it has to do with amateur radio.

As of today, Mrs. H. is a ham. By passing the FCC Technician Class exam last week, she joins the international community of amateur radio operators, and her callsign is KF5GFE. Congratulations are certainly in order!

She and I both checked into our local 2 meter net on the Westbank Amateur Radio Club repeater this evening using our little Alinco handheld, and we are greatly looking forward to getting our ICOM 706 on the air - especially as hurricane season draws near.

June 3rd of this year will mark Fr. H.'s 35th anniversary as a ham. Here is a nice little introduction to ham radio narrated by the late Walter Cronkite, KB2GSD, back in 2003.

73,

WB8VNR & KF5GFE

Ham Radio video, 1939

Ham Radio and the (Really!) Great White North

On a Tuesday afternoon, August 1, 1978, I tuned in a radio station called VE8RCS.

This was an amateur radio station that also happened to be the most northern radio station in the world (450 nautical miles from the north pole), located at a small Canadian weather/military outpost in Alert, Canada - at that time part of the Northwest Territories (now Nunavut).

And at that time, I also lived up north (in Ohio, which is downright tropical by comparison to Alert) and I also had an amateur radio station - WB8VNR (which is still my call-sign today).

I tuned in VE8RCS on the 20 meter ham band (14.162 MHz) at 1758 Greenwich Mean Time. The operator, Brock, was using voice communication. I could not contact him by voice, as the FCC only allowed for Morse Code communications for American radio stations in that portion of the 20 meter band. So, when he finished his previous contact, I called to him in Morse code.

Brock was a little surprised, but we carried on a nice conversation - he using a microphone and I responding using a telegraph key. It was a little unusual, but worked out just fine. I received a QSL card from VE8RCS to confirm our contact. It is shown above. This was a more memorable QSO (contact).

I ran across the card today, and was curious about whether or not the station is still there.

So using technology that we take for granted today that didn't exist in 1978, I went to www.qrz.com, and found out the rest of the story, which is found here. Since May 15, 1997, VE8RCS is no more. But it was temporarily revived in 2008 for the 50th anniversary of the radio station. A more complete history is found here.

Until today, I had no idea that in 1978 (32 years ago, when I was 14 years old), amateur radio was the only means of communication between Alert and the world, and that men were stationed there for six months at a time. Nor did I know that this was considered the most sought after radio contact in the world (followed by KC4AAA, the American Antarctic station, and JY1A, the King of Jordan).

Time and technology have turned my contact with VE8RCS into a thing of the past. But it was a great thing that ham radio was able to keep the guys stationed there in communication with the outside world, and did so for decades.

I do hope they keep some amateur radio equipment there "just in case." In a climate like that, I imagine it is wise to be "alert."