by Cynthia Wall

Created on: July 17, 2008   Last Updated: December 31, 2011

At 2 a.m. on October 1973, my stepmother was hard at work in front of her ham station. She was "phone patching" a wounded soldier in Vietnam home to his mother in the states so that she could offer words of comfort before his arm was amputated. As the mother cried while waiting for her turn to talk, my stepmother, Lenore, urged her to be strong to give her son the strength he would need to get through the ordeal. The mother did just that, telling him that they all loved him and would be waiting for him to come home.

It was witnessing these radio contacts night after night, my parents bleary-eyed but determined to be the vital link between soldiers far away and loved ones here, that made me want to be a ham.

Certainly I had been exposed to this wireless hobby since birth. My grandfather was one of the first hams in the country and demonstrated his spark gap transmitter at the World's Fair. While he was doing lightning research, Marconi and several others world wide were experimenting with talking by wireless. There had been communication for several years via the transatlantic cable, but Marconi was relentless in his quest to send a message unfettered by wires. If he hadn't succeeded, others would have as the world was ripe for the radio age.

I talked to Santa Claus by ham radio when I was four, unaware that the sleigh bells jingling and the jolly ho ho ho coming over my father's "rig" that December night were really just a few blocks away from a fellow ham. Trips cross country were always accompanied with meeting people as far away as someone sailing the world solo or as close as the next town with a friendly ham recommending a good restaurant or better yet, "why don't you stop by my place?"

Called Amateur Radio by the Federal Communications Commission, ham radio's official purpose is to provide emergency communication during times of disaster. To that end, ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Services) participate in county and city disaster drills country wide. If the power goes out, if there is an earthquake or a flood outside of cell phone coverage, ham radio operators are standing by ready to help.

When they're not helping with disasters, hams like to talk to the world. In 1983, astronaut Owen Garriott, also a ham, talked to school children all over the world from the space shuttle Challenger. I was standing outside my college classroom as the shuttle passed Salem, Oregon and was thrilled beyond belief when I heard his signal.

It's a hobby that has fostered thousands

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