Radio Operators Showcase Their Skills at American Radio Relay

SULLIVAN COUNTY, Tenn. – It resembled a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie: Computers and ham radios powered by a mobile generator cluttering a picnic stand of tables ringed by trees and overlooking South Holston Lake. A grove of tents stood nearby.

Men and women wearing headphones hunched over their radios Saturday hoping to reach a voice, any voice, in the next state, in Canada, or on the other side of the world.

“This is Whiskey-Four-Ugly-Duck, over,” Bill Price, of Blountville, called into the mike.

Static crackled. Then a deep, mechanical voice answered from Ontario.

“Whiskey-Four-Ugly-Duck, thank you for calling. Over,” the mystery voice said.

Another success registered by the Bristol Amateur Radio Club in just two hours. That was one more contact made and another 22 hours of transmissions to go.

The scene was part of the annual American Radio Relay League exercise, where radio clubs across the United States and Canada test their mettle through dusk and dawn. It’s pretty much a fun way to keep sharp for a real emergency, even a post-apocalyptic one. Club members earn points during the event – for the number of contacts made, the distance to the contact reached, and even if a news reporter shows up. They compete for bragging rights against other clubs and individual radio operators in the league.

“You remember the ice storm a few years ago?” club member Toni Ward asked. “The lines were down at the fire station. My husband ran the dispatch from the house.”

Her husband, Lonnie Ward, is the emergency coordinator for east Sullivan County. That means he’ll be the person rescue crews call on to round up the area’s radio hobbyists when the power goes down.

By evening Saturday, club members had reached ham radio operators as distant as Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean near Australia.

Reaching a far away radio is “like hitting the winning shot of a basketball game,” club member and local event organizer Ben Morris said.

The annual exercise might be intended for North America, but it’s such a huge event that amateur radio enthusiasts across the world want to get in on it, Morris said.

Each transmission from the picnic stand began with Whiskey-Four-Ugly-Duck, which are the phonetic call signs of the Bristol club – W4UD. Each operator has his, or her, own call sign, but for this event they work as a club.

Not everyone planned to stay overnight. But for those who did, the tents were ready, and the encampment was stocked with grilled hamburgers, potato salad and tubs of ice-chilled cola likely to be missing in an end-of-the-world scenario.

“I’m not a tent person,” Toni Ward said, and grinned.

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