Ham radio

Maryland resident Murray Green has helped connect overseas soldiers with their families without ever leaving his home.

Mr. Green reaches out to new friends in the military and all over the world via his ham radio.

Amateur radio enthusiasts, commonly known as ham radio operators, work on the lesser-known frequencies of the radio dial. The AM radio frequency ranges from 540 to 1600 kilohertz, but the band extends far beyond those parameters.

That’s where the ham operators roam.

Amateur radio operators work along nine bands, or groups of frequencies, in the high frequency range (between 1800 and 29,700 kilohertz) and seven bands in the very high frequency, ultrahigh frequency and superhigh frequency ranges.

Amateur-radio-based chats can be heard by anyone with the right ham equipment who stumbles upon the frequency being used. Mostly, though, the conversations are two-way communications.

A ham radio operator can talk to a neighbor, a stranger in China or even an astronaut orbiting Earth. Although relations between the United States and other countries might run from hot to cold, ham operators tend to bond above and beyond national ties

Ham signals typically arc upward toward the ionosphere, the electrically charged atoms in the Earth’s atmosphere that extend from about 50 to 300 miles above the surface of the planet.

“Where it comes down could be in Europe, the Middle East or a small island in the Pacific. You can’t control the bounce, [but] you can put out a better signal by virtue of a better antenna,” Mr. Green says.

Some signals even bounce off the moon before landing at their destination.

Ham radio offers more powerful frequencies and more channels than CB radio transmissions.

A solid ham radio system includes an antenna, transmitter and receiver. Lesser units combine the latter two into a “transceiver.” The price for a ham radio system can range from about $100 for a used setup to thousands of dollars.

In 1919, Frank Conrad of Wilkinsburg, Pa., began broadcasting music to his neighbors in the Pittsburgh suburb via an early ham radio, a move that helped spark the creation of commercial radio.

Mr. Green, whose home features a 70-foot tower, can turn his antenna and aim its beam like a flashlight.

“You’re aiming the beam of signal toward the country you’re trying to reach,” he says.

Ham operators often try to contact as many countries as they can to test the limits of their equipment. Some just want to reach out and touch someone, what Mr. Green says is called “rag chewing.”

Mr. Green often lets military personnel “rag chew” with loved ones by connecting his transceiver and his telephone via a phone patch — a small box of electrical components that lets the two mediums merge.

College Park resident Dan Blasberg, president of the Foundation for Amateur Radio, says ham radio operators work alongside government agencies and other groups.

“We all share frequencies. We have just different slices of them,” Mr. Blasberg says.

Mr. Blasberg’s nonprofit group, made of about 50 clubs and organizations based in the District, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, supports the amateur radio community with technical and advisory guidance.

FAR sponsors a Hamfest each year, an amateur radio gathering with demonstrations, sales booths and information for beginners. This year’s event is set for September 11 and 12 in Gaithersburg (www.farfest.org).

Mr. Blasberg says atmospheric conditions can affect a ham radio transmission just as they do commercial radio signals.

“Right now, we’re heading toward the low point in the sunspot cycle,” he says. “Frequencies around 28 megahertz and up won’t bounce off the ionosphere as well. Lower frequencies work better for worldwide communications.”

The sunspot cycle changes from high to low over a five- to six-year process, he says.

Ham radio operators work under some specific regulations, Mr. Blasberg says. Operators can’t rebroadcast other audio material except for weather bulletins or other emergency news, and they can’t send music out into the atmosphere.

Other rules are more observed than cast in stone.

“There’s a gentleman’s agreement you try not to bring politics and religion into it,” he says, “but some [transmissions] are exactly for that.”

Those interested in ham radio must earn a license before hitting the airwaves. Three licensing levels are available — the entry-level Technician, General and the Amateur Extra levels.

Would-be operators must pass tests involving FCC rule knowledge and, at the higher levels, demonstrate some Morse code savvy.

Jennifer Hagy, media relations manager with the American Radio Relay League in Newington, Conn., says ham operators roughly break down into two groups — those who get a charge out of chatting up new friends and operators dedicated to using their radio chops for public service.

New technology such as the Internet hasn’t dampened enthusiasm for either, Ms. Hagy says.

“It’s quite different than sending an e-mail and knowing it will get there right away,” Ms. Hagy says. “It’s the allure of the human voice.

“A lot of people think it’s old-fashioned,” she continues. With the advent of the Internet and cellular phones, “people figure ham radio died a long time ago.”

Sometimes, she says, those systems break down and ham radio operators are left to connect people in times of crisis.

“Amateur radio assisted the Red Cross in Brooklyn after 9/11,” she says. Operators worked round the clock in shifts to provide communication help to whoever needed it.

Brunswick, Md., resident Roy Bates, with the Mid-Atlantic DX & Repeater Association, lends his ham expertise to local emergency communications in Frederick County.

“We were busy when Isabel came through, keeping emergency management apprised,” says Mr. Bates, who keeps his radio equipment in his camper.

Ham operators might help with something as basic as making sure emergency workers get fed on time to passing on more complex information such as the logistics of a rescue operation.

During emergencies, the normally reliable modes of communication can get “seriously overloaded,” Mr. Bates says. “That’s where we come in.”