Local radio operators 'ham' it up

Amateur radio is more than just a hobby

By Ellen Spitaleri

The Clackamas Review, Feb 3, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

Ellen Spitaleri / Clackamas Review

Michael Read and Louise Evans get ready to hit the airwaves in the radio room at Willamette View Manor.

Before there was e-mail, before there was text messaging, there was radio.

And for more than 100 people in Clackamas County, there is still radio — amateur radio, sometimes referred to as ham radio.

“Some people look at amateur radio as a hobby,” using the airwaves as a means to communicate with other users worldwide, said David Kidd.

But for Kidd, the district emergency coordinator for Amateur Radio Emergency Service, and Michael Read, the real purpose of amateur radio is to provide emergency communication services during a large-scale disaster.

Read, the public information officer for Clackamas County Amateur Radio Emergency Service, added, “CARES is a group of volunteers within Clackamas County that provide emergency communication with our own equipment, when all else fails.”

In the case of a big emergency, “the counties provide an area for us and we go to a county facility called an Emergency Operations Center,” which in Clackamas County is located on Kaen Road, Read said.

“A select group of people goES to the EOC,” during an emergency call-up, Read said, while others use their own equipment, or use facilities at fire stations, hospitals or other locations.

“All of amateur radio is designed to help in an emergency — it is designed to run off a 12-volt battery,” so that operators will always have power, Read added.

Snow storm of 2008

Most recently, CARES volunteers helped out during the snow storms that hit the county.

“During our ‘little frost’ over Christmas,” Kidd said, CARES volunteers received a radio message from an emergency coordinator that alerted them to the plight of an elderly couple snowed in, in an area of Milwaukie that was tricky to get to.

“Their phone was out, their electricity was out,” Read noted.

“We had a vehicle, chained up, and went to the grocery store and bought them $100 worth of groceries. Then we had to snake our way back onto a road that looked like an elevator shaft and walk in with the groceries through knee-deep snow,” Kidd said.

Vernonia flooding

“The CARES team was activated for eight-and-a-half days in December of 2007 for the Vernonia flooding — that was the longest period we’ve ever been activated in my 23 years in the system,” Kidd said. “The ‘island of Vernonia’ was not a joke, it was a reality.”

During that time, a publication from the national organization, The Amateur Radio Relay League, stated that Governor Ted Kulongoski visited Vernonia, and called the amateur radio operators “the heroes from the very beginning,” saying the ARES group had provided “a tremendous communication link,” setting up networks so emergency officials could communicate and relaying lists of supplies needed in stricken areas.

Previously the CARES group went on alert when it looked like a couple of hundred refugees from Hurricane Katrina were expected in Oregon, Kidd said.

Only a handful of people eventually arrived, but the CARES group did support the Red Cross at the district level during the crisis, he added.

Classes and training

When Kidd first began working with amateur radio, only two cities had ham gear.

“Now every city has amateur radio capability, along with every fire station and two of the three hospitals,” he said.

He and Read teach classes, all over the county, noting that there are three levels of licensing from the FCC — technical, general and amateur.

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