Page 4 Sec. II * THE HERALD-COASTER, Rosenberg - Richmond, Texas * Thursday, July 22, 1999

Communicating With The World

Ham radio club thrives at Texas Instruments

By RICHARD ZAGRZECKI

Robert Wolters will admit he's been hooked for 40 years. Before you get the wrong impression, it's nothing bad. What he's had is a life-long passion for his talking to people all over the globe via the radio equipment set up in his home. That's right, he's a ham radio buff. And he's not the only one.

Within the confines of the Texas Instrument facility on U.S. 59 in Stafford is a room filled with amateur radio equipment. It's used by the ham radio club at TI - a group that has been in existence longer than any of the current members have worked there.

Wolters, a long-time Fort Bend County resident who lives in Pecan Grove, is one of the senior members. Give him a moment of your time, and he'll tell you everything there is to know about the hobby. "It takes a fair amount of skill and information a lot of times. In my case, it's something that has grown over 40 years. I'm sure I don't know everything," Wolters said.

Ham radio operators have to be licensed and pass a test to be able to use a radio and contact other amateurs, either in the local area, or around the world. The contact is either by voice, which is probably the most common method, or by old-fashioned Morse Code. "And then, people even get into operating with amateur satellites and slow scan television and digital modes like computer packet switching communication," he said. "Personally for me, it's pretty much a 50-50 mixture of voice and Morse Code. For me, it's a little bit of talking to friends in the immediate Houston area, but mostly it's chasing what we call 'DX'er stations that are quite a distance around the world," he said. How much equipment does it take to be an amateur ham radio operator? "For an individual, it depends," he said. "Now, they've even got one little radio that's not much bigger than a car radio that does everything." Wolters has a spot in the house where he has a desktop for radio equipment and computers. "I also have equipment in the car," he said. The equipment is a ham radio - not a CB radio associated with truckers and amateurs in the 1970s. "This is a totally different frequency and a totally different style of operating. A lot of the stuff that people have in cars is VHF and UHF, similar to radios in police cars and taxi cabs," he said.

He's been involved in amateur radio since 1956. It's been a hobby of his for pretty much most of his life, he admits. The information superhighway and the internet have made it a little easier for amateurs like himself to locate others across the globe by radio. "I get newsletters and there is stuff available on the internet now that I get automatically through news groups. I get information when someone is going to be in a certain location that I haven't talked to yet," he said. "So this week, for example, I'm going to be looking for St. Paul Island in northeastern Canada, just off of Newfoundland. It's been in some of the newsletters for about a month now.

"And there's some information on the internet as to where they might appear on frequency and I have an automatic scavenger program that will sound a little alarm on my computer if they are heard on that frequency. At that time, I'll go in there and get on the radio. But I probably don't spend a lot of time just sitting in front of the radio," he said.

Speaking to other ham radio operators around the world isn't that difficult because of one thing - English is the language most all of them use. "English is pretty much the universal language," he said. "However, just about this time of the year we have a lot of signals that come in over the North Pole from Russia, and you'll hear a lot of Russian. You'll hear from time to time a lot of foreign languages. "Probably 99 percent of the time, everyone is speaking English," he said. "Either in (Morse) Code or on voice."

Generally, he said, ham radio operators don't do all that much talking to one another. Usually, they will exchange a signal report, a name and location. Over the past four decades, he's contacted people from just about every nation on the planet. "I'm missing about half a dozen, and they're places where there basically has been no amateur operation," he said. "North Korea has not had any. There's a few islands in the Indian Ocean. Basically, it's a handful of places I've never talked to. There's well over 300 countries I have talked to.

"You keep a log book. Then you exchange cards - like post cards - which shows a confirmation of the contact. I've got boxes and boxes full of USL cards that have been exchanged with people afterward," he said. Libya, he said, basically has been a very closed country for all these years. Finally, there are one or two people who have operated from there. Several months ago, he even was able to contact someone on the South Pacific island of Tonga.

"About two months ago, the lady who lives on the corner near me has two Tiger Cub dens she helps with. She brought those kids down here and a half a dozen parents," he said. "They came in here and it just so happens there was a guy on the air from Tonga. I made a contact with him and we sat there and talked back and forth for a while. He was in Tonga on vacation and he asked several of the kids to get to the microphone and give their name and their age." The kids, he said, were impressed, not only by his ability to get someone on the radio in Tonga, but also by the fact he knew where Tonga is. "That's one byproduct of this - it sure improves your geography skills," he said. "You can't hardly stump me."

Wolters said there are "quite a few" people in his neighborhood who are amateur ham radio operators. He said there are computer CDs available that provide the names of amateur operators. He searched the zip codes for Fort Bend County and was surprised by the number. "There are probably 20 times as many people as I thought," he said. "There are probably 40 or 50 people alone who live in Pecan Grove. Now many of them probably aren't active, or maybe they just have a rig in their car and don't have a big antenna at their house.

"I've got a tower on the side of the garage. Again, it depends on the frequency and what you are really interested in," he said. "If you are interested in talking to people halfway across the world on those high frequency bands, then you have to have that kind of antenna, or you're not going to be able to talk to them. You can try to do it on much less of an antenna, but you're probably not going to be very effective."

In 1972, he started working for Texas Instruments in Stafford. At that time, there already was an amateur ham radio operator club for employees. "Many of the people like myself who enjoy ham radios wind up being engineers - which is why there's such an interest at TI," he said. "In a place like TI, where you have a lot of engineers working, you have a fair amount of hams as well."

Club president Bill Novak said the TI club's equipment is open to all club members. At the end of June, the club participated in an emergency communications drill. "We go out in the field and operate with batteries or gas generators or something that is not hooked up to the normal power supply," he said. "We see how many stations we can contact around the country with our portable equipment. You sort of practice your skills when putting together these emergency stations."

They managed to make over 400 contacts that weekend and had to endure temperatures in the 90s and sweltering humidity. One of the other group members who spent time helping with the exercise was George Ontko, who is a beginner. Ontko said he didn't really get involved with ham radios until recently, after a program involving ham operators was put on for his son's scout group, of which he is a den leader. A Fort Bend County resident, Ontko said he doesn't yet own any of his own equipment and has to use the club's radios at TI. He's interested at this point in seeing just how far he can make contact. "I'm looking for the distance," he said.

The club's web site on the World Wide Web provides information and photographs. Anyone can access it at: www.hal-pc.org/~tiarc

08/10/99