Ham Radio Still Alive And Kicking In Wyoming

THERMOPOLIS — Surrounded by the green grass tranquility of Hot Springs State Park, a temporary ham radio antenna reached into the sky.

Here, amateur radio operator Casey Freund sat in the shade at a park picnic table along with his ham radio, laptop and portable power supply. He was ready to communicate on a device that had its start more than 100 years ago, and was essential to civilization before Wi-Fi and smartphones.

The National Association for Amateur Radio (ARRL) reports that ham radio began at the turn of the 20th century.

In 1873, James Clerk Maxwell had presented his theory of the electromagnetic field and, nearly 30 years later in 1901, Guglielmo Marconi communicated across the Atlantic with a radio device using high-powered enormous antennas.

With a much smaller antenna, Freund used the same technology that Marconi pioneered. Coaxial cable was strung from the radio across the grass to his homemade antenna that extended about 20 feet into the air. The rabbit antenna, along with his 100-watt radio, can receive and transmit radio signals from coast to coast and beyond.

“There are calculations you can do to find antennas that work on multiple frequencies, but they're a little harder to build yourself,” Freund said. “This is a super easy antenna that took me about 15 minutes to build last year and I measured off the piece of wire that we're using today to be harmonic to the radio frequency that we're going to be on.”

Plugging his radio and laptop into his battery pack, a homemade system housed in a plastic ammo box, Freund was now ready to “key up” which means “to transmit” in ham radio jargon.

Carefully fine tuning his radio, Freund checked various radio frequencies for a clear channel catching bits of conversations. He paused on one conversation which sounded like a long-distance tailgate party as the men discussed eating crackers and drinking wine from the back of their pickup truck.

“There are a lot of random conversations going on in nets,” Freund explained using another ham radio term. For the uninitiated, “net” is an on-air gathering.

“There's one called the Wyoming Cowboy Net that happens every day,” he said. “It's all people in Wyoming. They hop on 80-meters at a set time of the day every day, and they talk on there.”

Freund doesn’t have the capability to join the 80-meter Cowboy Net since his antenna is a smaller 20-meter set-up. However, his favorite parts of the hobby are not the conversation. He prefers to ‘CQ’ which means that the radio operator is calling out for anyone to respond for a quick contact. Freund would then log their signal strength, location and call sign into his laptop.

Parks On The Air

Freund adjusted the dial on his radio transceiver, still searching for a clear frequency. He set up his antenna and gear purposely in the Hot Springs State Park in Thermopolis so he could participate in his favorite program called “Parks On The Air”.

“You are trying to get as many people as you can in a short period of a time,” Freund said. He continued to move his dial in search of a clear frequency. Static, clicks, beeps and voices reminiscent of Star Wars characters came over the airwaves.

“It's like a contest, a little game,” he said.

The conversations are quick. Every state or national park has an identifying park number assigned to it and for Hot Springs State Park the number is 3299. This system allowed the operators to exchange their call signs, signal strength, location and radio call sign before moving on to the next person.

“We call it a handshake,” Freund said. “I hear you. You hear me. Here's your signal report. Here's my signal report. How well you're hearing everything. And then the park numbers. It’s a lot of trying to make as many contacts as quick as you can.”

Freund paused on a static filled frequency and called out, “CQ, CQ is this frequency in use?”

He asked the question three times. Confident that he had found a clear frequency, Freund keyed in and almost immediately made contact.

“This is Kilo Charlie 7 Echo at 3299,” Freund rattled off his personal call sign, KC7E, and the park number.

“You are about a 5.9 in Portland,” came the response which was the radio signal strength and location.

“QSL. I copy the Portland,” Freund said, which translates to “I acknowledge your signal report. I heard you say that you are in Portland.”

“I appreciate it, 73,” the Portland operator said, signing off with the “73” which is ham radio speak for “Cheers and Best Wishes.”

“73,” Freund said, moving to the next operator and handshake.

The contacts were rapid and within eleven minutes, Freund had made 16 contacts in 10 different states such as Texas, Oregon, Arizona and Missouri and two Canadian Provinces.

“I'll log my contacts on the computer and when I talk to people, you'll hear us saying a weird set of numbers and letters which is our call sign,” Freund said. “For example, ‘Whiskey Seven Romeo Tango Alpha’ was his call sign for W7RTA.”

Postcards From Space

It’s not just live contacts that Freund makes through his radio. He has also captured ‘postcards from space’ and other images that have been transmitted over the radio waves. One such photo came over his radio after he had ended his park session.

As a series of beeps and static filled the air, Freund opened an app on his phone and an image slowly emerged, line by line. Once he got the image downloaded, he looked up the call sign and was able to ascertain that the image came from an amateur ham radio operator out of Pennsylvania.

“They're just sending out a radio wave,” Freund explained. “It sounds a lot like dial up internet. A lot of the things you'll hear is actually data that is being transmitted.”

You don’t need a 100-watt radio transceiver to receive these messages from space. A cheaper handheld radio will capture the radio signals and a simple app on your smart phone will decipher the image.

“With a handheld and cellphone for a decoder, I can download postcards from the space station flying overhead,” Freund said. “They do that probably three times a year.”

Something For Everyone

Ham radio operators are a diverse group with so many interests that Freund says there is a niche for just about everyone.

“It's a lot of fun. I do the hobby side of it but there’s also the prepping and emergency communication. There's the technical sides,” Freund said. “I know people that they'll build their own radios.”

Freund is so enthusiastic about the hobby that he got the third tier of amateur radio license called the “Extra.” By doing this very involved and complex training, he can help other people prepare for their exams to get an amateur radio license.

A radio operator doesn’t need a license to listen to ham radios, but the FCC requires anyone speaking on air or transmitting data, to have their own license.

This license requirement has been around for 112 years when Congress enacted the Radio Act of 1912 to curb radio interference.

The government mandated that amateurs must be licensed and restricted to the single wavelength of 200 meters. These tests, Freund said, can be very intimidating for some people.

“The FCC wants you to know more than you need to know,” Freund said. “It chases away some folks but we can help you if you are serious about getting into the hobby.”

For those who would like to take their test, Freund is available at his website, KC7E.org, to arrange on-line or in person testing. He is also the president of two growing amateur radio clubs, one in the Big Horn Basin and the smaller Thermopolis group.

“I tell everybody, get that general license at a minimum, because “General” gets you on the skip or long-distance radio waves,” Freund said. “Listening is okay but talking is where all the fun is.”

He reached over to his transmitter once more, and just for fun, and with a little fine tuning, he was able to hear a Morse code signal being transmitted across the airwave. As the code beeped out the familiar sounds, he said, “Who needs the internet when you have your own transceiver?”

Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.