Ham radio nicely complements the motorhome lifestyle, as members of FMCA’s Amateur Radio chapter can attest.
By Mike Wendland, F426141
December 2013
Thanks to the Internet, e-mail, text messaging, and Facebook updates, it’s easy for RVers today to stay in touch with friends and family while traveling. But a very active group of FMCA members takes such connectivity to a whole new level, “out-Interneting” even the Internet when it comes to being able to communicate with the world. They take their own radio stations with them.
They are members of FMCA’s Amateur Radio chapter, and their radio stations are ham radio transceivers that let them communicate with other ham operators from their motorhomes and, during the off-season, from their sticks-and-bricks homes.
Amateur radio is not the same thing as CB, or citizen’s band, radio. CB radio involves short-range, low-powered communications and is used mostly by truckers and highway drivers these days. It’s noisy, undisciplined, and often plagued by interference and rude or profane language.
Amateur radio is just the opposite. It is a popular hobby and service in which licensed “ham operators” utilize communications equipment in a variety of forms, from voice to Morse code to digital. To become a radio amateur, operators must demonstrate basic knowledge of radio technology and operating principles and pass an examination to obtain a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) license to operate on radio frequencies known as the “amateur bands.” These bands are radio frequencies reserved by the FCC for use by ham radio operators. Ham frequencies can connect amateurs from across the street and across the world.
Besides just talking and visiting with their on-the-air friends, many radio amateurs donate their time and equipment for public service work during times of emergency or disaster.
I’ve been a ham operator since 1962 when, as a teenager, I became K8ZRH, my ham radio call. Over the years, I’ve been in and out of the hobby. For a while, I was obsessed with “chasing DX,” or making contact with different ham operators all over the world. I earned certificates for working amateurs in all 50 states, and then in more than 100 countries.
I learned and mastered Morse code, the language of transmitted dots and dashes. I built all sorts of different antennas, bouncing signals off satellites and even the moon. I embraced computer technology, joining my ham radio transceiver to my computer and using digital communications.
I got involved in contesting, or radio sport, as it’s sometimes known. Almost every weekend, ham radio contests take place. As part of these competitions, hams try to make contact with operators under all sorts of conditions, such as using emergency battery or solar power, and to accumulate as many contacts as possible in a specific period of time.
The contests are training exercises, really. First and foremost, amateur radio is a service. If normal communications should ever fail, ham radio operators are practiced and ready to donate their time and expertise to keep the nation in touch.
That’s the great thing about ham radio. It involves so many fascinating activities and services operators can tap into.
Lately, it’s that public service aspect that has taken up most of my ham radio time. The first accessory I added to my motorhome when I started my RV adventures was a ham radio transceiver. I’m part of my local community’s Amateur Radio Public Service Corps, which works with the Department of Homeland Security to provide emergency communications when needed.
I’ve taken special classes from meteorologists to serve as a severe weather spotter, something hams do when bad weather threatens. The goal is to have trained observers during weather warnings.
And I’ve embraced ham “nets,” short for networks, or groups of stations that gather on a specific frequency at a set time to exchange communications. That’s how I discovered the FMCA Amateur Radio chapter. The group runs communications nets Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, gathering at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time from all across the United States. A net control volunteer coordinates check-ins and directs one station to talk at a time. Conversation typically revolves around the main interests of the members, motorhome travel and amateur radio. It’s like an RV rally on the air.
Members chat about modifications they’ve done to their motorhomes, their radios, and antenna systems, and, of course, about the weather. The chapter also has a Web site at http://fmcaarc.com that pinpoints the mobile or fixed locations of many of its approximately 100 members on a map. And just like other FMCA chapters, they attend FMCA rallies and campouts throughout the year.
Les Wright, the chapter president, is known to his fellow hams by his call sign, AA7YC. He and wife, Carole, have been full-timers since 2002, traveling the country in a 36-foot 2009 Alpine Coach. They are Nevada residents with longtime friends and family in the Reno area and usually spend a few weeks there each year. But with kids and grandkids in New York, North Carolina, Nevada, and California, they are on the road more often than not.
Les has been a huge proponent of both motorhoming and amateur radio.
“The two go together hand in hand,” he said. “We get to stay in touch all the time and stay connected with what people are seeing, where they are going, instead of once or twice a year when we meet at rallies.”
Les and Carole (F274078) are both licensed and both participate in the radio contacts throughout the week. Their “radio shack,” as hams call their equipment room, connects through a computer in their motorhome with a transmitter stowed in the storage “basement.” They travel with several antennas, including one that mounts atop a telescoping flagpole attached to the back of the coach.
“For us, being full-timers, amateur radio has been a great way to have community wherever we go,” Carole said.
For Larry and Karla Dayhuff, F404927, from Lecanto, Florida, when they met the Wrights, they discovered that the couple’s enthusiasm for amateur radio was infectious. Larry had been a ham radio operator years before but was inactive. After being exposed to the FMCA Amateur Radio chapter, he once again plunged into the hobby full tilt, even going so far as to study and pass the stringent exam for the most advanced ham license there is, Amateur Extra Class, N7LWD. Larry is now chapter vice president.
Karla studied and obtained the General Class license, K4KLD, which allows her to operate on all ham bands. She’s the chapter secretary and membership chair.
They travel extensively in a 2006 Monaco Windsor and use amateur radio on the road from their motorhome and their Florida home.
“We love the community we’ve met through RVing and ham radio,” Karla said. “We have met so many new friends.”
Community. That’s a word you hear a lot from ham operators.
Amateur radio is a very social pastime. While many are attracted by an initial interest in the technology and electronics that make two-way radio communication possible, most amateurs just enjoy “ragchewing,” or casual conversation with friends — friends who may just happen to be on the other side of the continent, or the world.
And when you add in RVing and motorhome travel, there’s no shortage of fun things to talk about.
Till next month, as the ham operators say … 73, or “Best Regards.”
Veteran journalist Mike Wendland, F426141, FMCA’s official on-the-road reporter, travels the country with his wife, Jennifer, and their Norwegian elkhound, Tai, aboard the couple’s Roadtrek Type B motorhome. Mike can be reached at openmike@fmca.com.