[RTTY] Hamming It Up at Radio Meets

[llindblom@juno.com]

>From Today's Wired News. 

73 Larry, W0ETC
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Hamming It Up at Radio Meets 
By Mark Baard

Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,67615,00.html

02:00 AM May. 25, 2005 PT

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts -- If you think you know what a nerd is, try visiting a swap meet or convention where amateur radio operators like to hang out.

You will not see many people wearing fitted Gap shirts and fancy eye wear at the MIT Swapfest here or at the Dayton Hamvention in Ohio. Both are occasions for amateur, or ham, radio buffs to buy gear and trade tips for improving their transmissions to places that phones and computers often can't reach, particularly during emergencies.
Despite threats to ham radio bands from RF interference caused by technologies such as broadband over power lines, or BPL, the number of Federal Communications Commission amateur radio licenses last year topped more than 683,000, an all-time high. But unless you visit events like the MIT Swapfest or the Dayton Hamvention, you may never encounter these übernerds directly.

"It is this great community of people," said Marty Connor, a ham radio operator and computer consultant from Cambridge. "And it is invisible."

That's because when they are not performing high-profile services -- like helping out during marathons or emergency relief efforts (such as those in the wake of the recent Asian tsunami and the 9/11 terrorist attacks) -- hams are often busy trying out new radio technologies in their tiny stations, called "shacks," at home.

Hams are the planet's prototypical nerds, said Tom Medlin, a ham radio operator from Memphis, Tennessee, who works as a telecommunications engineer for FedEx. Long before blogging and podcasting, hams were using surplus World War II radio gear and backyard antennas to contact people around the planet.

"Many of us build our own equipment and are always experimenting," said Medlin, who operated webcams during the annual Dayton Hamvention last week. "We like to see what we can do."

Hams helped develop packet radio communications, for example, the technology that paved the way for today's internet and wireless network communications protocols.

Hams who belong to clubs with large transmitters, such as those at Harvard University and MIT, can communicate directly with operators on the far side of the globe, or even on the International Space Station.

They have also been bridging hundreds of repeater antennas, which boost signals within local areas, to the internet. That way, hams can talk to each other even at great distances without having to have their own giant backyard radio antennas or towers.

Hams in the United States need licenses to operate on certain frequencies, and they must comply with FCC decency standards (a sharp distinction from citizens band radio, and the internet, for that matter, the hams say).

Another ham pastime is "ragchewing," in which operators chat about everything from new gadgets to runaway brides from their shacks or their cars, with the help of rooftop antennas and local repeaters.

"When you're driving to work, hams are all around you," said Connor, who gives out "free advice" from a spot at the MIT Swapfest, which takes place monthly from April through October. "There are thousands of people talking to each other on a giant party line."

Hams speak an esoteric language, a mix of radio slang and callsigns, and they like to talk about the enduring virtues of Morse code, which many still use on the airwaves.

Sometimes shoppers at the MIT Swapfest don't talk at all.

Lynn Shackelford, who deals in vacuum-tube-based radios and equipment at the MIT Swapfest, remembers two students who once approached his table.

"They came by wearing calculators in holsters," said Shackelford, co-owner of Art's Attic in Manchester, New Hampshire, and a licensed ham operator. "They took out the calculators and started typing on them, and then handed them to each other two or three times. They walked away without saying a word."

Hams, though their ranks are growing, are an aging community. More than 40 percent of hams in the United States are retirees, according to the American Radio Relay League, the national association for amateur radio in the United States.

Tattoos at ham flea markets tend to be faded and crinkly, suggesting real military service rather than latter-day Celtic warrior fantasies. Pocket protectors and eyeglasses with thick lenses are also common. (And, yes, some eyeglass wearers appear to have taped their frames together).

Many are eager to become "Elmers," or ham mentors, to young people.

"(The MIT Swapfest) is a confluence of really brilliant people, including some Nobel Prize winners," said Harvard student Matthew Gline. Gline, who also goes by his FCC-issued ham radio callsign, KG2OT, is president of the Harvard University Radio Club, a co-sponsor of MIT Swapfest.

MIT Matsushita Professor of Electrical Engineering Gerald Jay Sussman, known as something of a "loud and proud" nerd, is a Swapfest regular.

The Swapfest is also said to be a former stomping ground for that most notorious of nerds, Bernhard Goetz. New Yorkers dubbed Goetz the "subway vigilante" after he shot four youths he believed were about to mug him in 1984.

Goetz in an e-mail said he was unavailable for an interview. He indicated in his message that he was busy at the Dayton Hamvention.