Ham radio operator reflects on 40-year hobby
Apr. 15—Peru resident Bill McAlpin said he vividly remembers being a kid and someone giving his father a shortwave radio receiver.
Shortly after acquiring it, McAlpin's family strung an antenna up between his house and his grandparents' house next door, and he'd sit there for hours listening to communication from all over the world.
And McAlpin's been hooked on amateur (ham) radio ever since.
The Tribune caught up with McAlpin recently at the Howard County Emergency Management Agency, where he's helping teach a class on the technology as a member of the Kokomo Amateur Radio Club.
"My call sign (personal identification) is WD9GIU ... gee I'm ugly," he said laughing, a half-dozen handheld radios resting beside him on a table. "I had a cousin and an uncle that were hams (ham radio operators), and I just thought it was a neat hobby. ... And quite honestly, I never could understand how, when I was a kid in school, that somebody didn't see that interest and help me out. It wasn't until I was out of college and working that I actually had a chance to take a class."
McAlpin officially earned his novice license in ham radio in 1977, and he found himself drawn to the emergency medical services aspect of it all.
"I did EMT and hospital communication system planning, and I was a 911 dispatcher," he said, "so that sort of piqued my interest. Ham radio kind of has this reputation that when all else fails, you can kind of rely on ham. So, for instance, when hurricanes or tornadoes happen, and communication gets wiped out, it's often the ham radio operators that can go in and set up equipment."
"I'm also heavily involved in storm spotting," McAlpin added, "and we can use these radios to talk to the National Weather Service. The farther away from the radar, the less likely they can see what's happening in your area. That's where someone like me can come in, because I can look out a window and see exactly what's happening and call it in."
Though McAlpin enjoys the emergency management side to ham radio operation, he admitted there are countless other ways to use the technology, too — like the time he was able to help a group of students tune in to the International Space Station.
The Tribune was there in March 2017 when that communication took place, which included 11 minutes of back-and-forth interaction between the students and former ISS Commander Shane Kimbrough.
"That's the neatest thing I've ever done in ham radio," he said. "... I remember the first contact, I called, and there was no response. The teacher, who also had her ham license, she called and got no response. So, you have 750 kids in the auditorium just waiting. She called again, and there was no response, but I could hear some noise. I then said, 'That's it. We got it.' They (ISS) were going 17,500 miles per hour at the time, and we were able to talk to them. That's not something you get to do every day."
And it's that feeling of knowing that you never really know who you're going to interact with that is still alluring to McAlpin after all these years, whether it's connecting to someone in Spain or just across town.
It's also the reason he feels compelled to teach the next generation about how important and interesting ham radio really can be.
"It's really important to keep this hobby going," McAlpin said, "to get younger people involved and invested in it. ... Ham radio really is a good thing because it teaches kids social skills. They get to learn about technology. Robotics seems to be the big thing in schools right now, and that's neat. But when you look at it, maybe you just have a few kids involved. With ham radio, you can reach a whole different set of kids."
Kim Dunlap can be reached at 765-860-3256 or at kim.dunlap@kokomotribune.com.
