The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
On the air waves
Before the internet existed, communication abroad was difficult. Jack McKeown meets the man who found an alternative solution
The last time a Courier journalist was in Tom Harrison’s house was in 1968. The Prague Spring was in full flow, when the USSR flooded Czechoslovakia with troops to prevent a nonviolent uprising demanding democracy.
Tom Harrison was in the same cubbyhole in the eaves of his Dundee home using much of the same amateur radio equipment he does today.
“I was listening to amateur radio broadcasts coming out of Czechoslovakia, when one of them contacted me personally,” he remembers.
“He asked me to get a message to the United Nations saying they would continue to resist the Soviets. I got in touch with an amateur radio operator in New York who delivered the message.”
Originally from Stirling, Tom, 78, has been involved in amateur radio for more than 60 years, starting when he was at high school.
“A friend found a wireless in his garden shed and we got into tinkering with that,” he says.
“Then I was put in touch with an ex-RAF guy who had a repair shop above the local cinema. I’d go in after school most days and he showed me how to build my own equipment. ”
Amateur – or “ham” – radio uses shortwave radio transmitters that can bounce a signal off the earth’s atmosphere to travel vast distances.
“You can even bounce a signal off the moon and back to earth if you aim it right,” explains Tom.
A former engineer, Tom entered the hobby at the start of something of a golden age.
“After World War Two a lot of radio equipment was decommissioned and sold off cheap. You could get military grade kit for next to nothing.”
The great delight was being able to communicate with any region of the world.
“At that time if you wanted to make a phone call to America you had to book it days in advance,” Tom continues. “You were given a time slot of a few minutes and it was hugely expensive.
“With a shortwave radio you could speak to anyone on earth who also had a radio and it didn’t cost a penny.”
What does Tom discuss with his fellow ham radio enthusiasts?
“Politics and religion are off limits,” he says. “We’re all interested in ham radio so we have that in common. We’ll talk about signal strength, what equipment we’re using and whether we built it ourselves, and sometimes what the weather’s like where we are.”
When Tom got into the hobby learning Morse code was mandatory to get a licence and it’s still his main method of communication.
He’s a longstanding member of Dundee Amateur Radio Club and devotes a lot of time to teaching newcomers.
These days Tom limits the time he spends with his “obsession” as his wife Jean calls it, but he used to be inseparable from his beloved radio equipment.
“When we were on holiday in America and went on a cruise he brought his radio equipment with him,” Jean remembers. “I thought: which will be easier to live with, Tom with his radio equipment or Tom without it.”
With a shortwave radio you could speak to anyone on earth who also had a radio and it didn’t cost a penny