Going ham

Jim McLester knows you don’t need to see someone face-to-face to have a good conversation. The 30-year Chelsea resident has been involved in amateur radio, often called ham radio, since 1952.

Ham radio operators are licensed by the Federal Communications Commission to broadcast on certain airwaves under a unique call sign. 

Amateur radio often plays a role in disaster situations, enabling emergency personnel and humanitarian groups to communicate without telephones, electricity or internet. However, from day to day most hams use their equipment to talk with other operators around the world.

“There are those of us more interested in it technically, and working on it … and people who like to use it for communication as far as they can get it,” McLester said.

McLester, whose call sign is W4YXU, is one of many hams in the Shelby County Amateur Radio Club. He got started in amateur radio as a young teenager and went on to help found the University of Alabama radio club and make a career in broadcast engineering. 

Now retired, McLester returned to ham radio about a decade ago after a 20-year absence from the hobby. 

Ham radio has changed a lot since he first got his novice license on Dec. 31, 1952. At that time, operators had to be able to communicate in Morse code at five words per minute. That requirement has been dropped, McLester said, and most radios rely on computers to communicate across hundreds of miles. 

He used to be more active in building radios, but since his retirement McLester said he enjoys “just fiddling with it.”

Finding a stranger’s voice on the radio and starting a conversation might seem disconnected, but McLester said the ham community is friendly to lifelong radio enthusiasts and newcomers alike. 

It’s also a way to strengthen friendships across city and state lines. McLester is on the radio at least two times a week to talk to the hams he has met over the years, including several from his college radio club who have moved away from the area.

“Ham radio is probably one of the least discriminating hobbies,” McLester said.

McLester also meets his amateur radio friends a few times a month for SCARC meetings or just for a bite to eat. Among them is 31-year-old Terry Christian, a lifelong Chelsea resident who has been a ham since 2009.

Ham radio is highly dependent on an operator’s surroundings. Solar flares, geography, cloud cover and signal strength all factor in how far a ham’s broadcast can reach, and none knows that better than Christian. 

On a good day, his radio can reach to downtown Birmingham, St. Clair County and even Chilton County. On a bad day, due to the position of his house, Christian can’t get any signal out at all.

Christian got involved in ham radio because he’s interested in storm spotting and weather observation. Though he also talks to local hams and meets up with them regularly, Christian’s love for the hobby stems from its emergency practicality.

“Most of us are certified storm spotters through the National Weather Service,” Christian said. “That’s why I got into it. That’s the biggest reason.”

When bad weather disrupts phone and internet connections, a group of hams with reliable radio equipment can relay information to news stations, the NWS and even emergency personnel around the area. 

A group of Birmingham-area operators recently went to South Carolina to help after Hurricane Matthew, Christian said, but the tornadoes that struck Tuscaloosa and Birmingham in 2011 brought radio operators out in force to assist first responders.

“April 27 [2011] is where this area really showed what we could do … There were a lot of areas that had no communication, no cellphones, the towers were down, no internet, nothing. How did they talk to everybody? Through us,” Christian said.

Christian said he would like to eventually have the high frequency radio equipment that would allow him to communicate across the world. However, he echoed McLester that the friends he’s made through Shelby County Amateur Radio Club have made the hobby even more enjoyable.

“They’re awesome,” he said.

To learn more about amateur radio in Shelby County, go to w4shl.com.