Annual General Meeting
“As the propagation changes, my thoughts about what I’m going to do change,” he said. “If, for instance, we were at the top of the sunspot cycle, and there’s stations from all over the world pouring in, I would get there immediately and see who I could talk to.”
But Ewert has other options. Faraway countries are only accessible over the high-frequency bands. Close to home, Ewert can use veryhigh or ultra-high-frequency communication to reach nearby operators — particularly the local hams who’re members of the Regina Amateur Radio Association.
They’ve contrived ways to enhance their power. The association has placed a repeater on the roof of Regina City Hall. They bounce their signals off the device to reach beyond their line of sight.
Dion’s school club used that repeater to make their very first contact this January. They reached Summer Hartzfeld, a blind operator who specializes in Morse code. “That’s her passion,” said Dion. The new club lacks the hightechnology equipment housed in Ewert’s basement, or the multistorey antenna that towers over his home. They’ve placed a ramshackle antenna on the school’s roof. Dion brought in a “hodgepodge” of equipment from home. He estimates that the whole setup would be worth about $1,000 if it were new — and it isn’t.
But his students have fought through the sunspots doldrums to reach stations in the US, and a few in England. For Dion, it’s only the beginning.
“We’ll put up a better set-up, a bigger radio, a bigger antenna,” he said, “a permanent antenna that can reach pretty much everywhere in the world.”
We’ll put up a better set-up, a bigger radio, a bigger antenna. A permanent antenna that can reach pretty much everywhere in the world..
RADIO FREE RUSSIA
For Dion, the radio club fits into the school’s mandate to promote the French language. His students have used radio to reach amateurs in Québec and broadcast pleasantries en français.
“If we can open up the world to other francophone nations, that’s one way to differentiate ourselves,” he said.
Ham radio can unite cultures — even across the starkest political divides. That’s something Ewert found out in the midst of the Cold War.
“All through the Cold War and everything, there was no problem contacting amateurs behind the Iron Curtain,” he said. “I’ve had some very good contacts with some of the fellas there.”
But there are rules to follow. Hams like to exchange mementos, known as QSL cards, to prove they’ve made a contact. In the Soviet Union, though, all the cards had to go through a single government bureau. The cards Ewert received often displayed propaganda messages glorifying the scientific wonders of communism.
Talking politics was also frowned upon. It still is, along with business and religion. The guideline is observed by most Canadians, says Ewert, but broken by some “right-wing hams” in the United States. There were always exceptions, even under communism, as Ewert found out during the 1968 Prague Spring revolution in Czechoslovakia.
“I was tuning across the bands one night and I heard this station calling in Morse code,” he said. “I perked up, because it wasn’t just a normal contact. He was sending out a plea for help, because this was the day that the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia, and he was asking the world to help.
“He was using a false call sign, of course, but I recorded the transmissions he made. I never did find out what happened to him in the end.”
That wasn’t the only historic event Ewert witnessed through his radio set. He once got a call from the Rose Bowl parade in California. In 1993, he listened into a station broadcasting from President Bill Clinton’s inauguration.
He can also eavesdrop on disasters. Hams are eager to pitch in when more complicated infrastructure goes down in a storm or earthquake. In Regina, they’re even part of the city’s emergency management plan.
“We have a communications truck completely equipped with its own little repeater,” Ewert said, before describing the last time their services were required: a storm that hit Pilot Butte a few years ago.
“It also took down the antenna for their fire department,” he explained. “The hams stepped in and did any communications that were needed.
“Plus they fixed the antenna and got it operational, so the fire department was back in business again.”
NOT JUST FOR SILICON VALLEY GEEKS
Dion is almost certain that his club is now the only one of its kind in Regina. But it’s the second one to open up in the Laval high school building, which hosted a public school until the late 2000’s.
“When this school was Robert Usher, back in the day, there was a school club,” he said. “Back in the ‘50s and ‘60s and ‘70s it was very common to have school clubs, radio clubs in school, and it seems to have died out.”
That doesn’t mean it won’t come back. There are already a large number of school clubs in the United States, as his students found out earlier this year. He said that one of the most popular pursuits for young hams is contesting. The Laval kids recently took part in an in- ternational challenge to contact as many school clubs as possible.
Their weak signal strength kept them from reaching many stations, but they helped other clubs rack up points — including one from all the way down in Texas.
When asked why his students are getting into ham radio, he says the answer is simple: they like to play.
“For the kids right now, it’s just the opportunity to explore,” he said. “It’s just another subject that can spark their imagination.”
Radio, he said, is easier to tinker with than newer technologies. The hobby is amateur by definition, giving beginners an easy way to contribute. That’s what draws Morin-Barich to the hobby.
“Right now, I’m kind of interested in learning the steps of how it works,” he said. He’s now working on Morse code, and has gotten as far as the letter “E.” Ewert doesn’t find that surprising. He calls Morse “the original digital mode.”
“Thats all it is: dots and dashes,” the veteran ham pointed out.
“What attracts young people first is the computers,” he went on. “But a lot of them, once they get past computers, have found that they’re interested in communication and how radio waves work and this sort of thing. So they go into it a little deeper.”
Morin-Barich said that he feels like more kids his age would be interested in ham radio if they got to know what it’s all about.
Dion agrees. His radio setup isn’t reserved for the two or three kids, like Morin-Barich, who’re likely candidates for a licence. He uses it as a teaching tool in his science class. He hopes it will change his students’ view of technology.
“A lot of our technology we take for granted, and it’s important for the kids to realize that it’s part of our lives and it doesn’t have to be a mystery,” he said.
“It’s not something that’s reserved for geeks who live in California and make our technology every day.”