Some reasons I enjoy ham radio

Radio still seems like magic to me. In my early teenage years, I listened to distant AM radio stations on a small radio. On some nights the stations came in clearly, and other nights not at all. Today, my antennas and radios are much larger and more sensitive, but I still feel the magic. I may listen to friends across town, or talk with someone perched on a small atoll in mid-Pacific Ocean, or talk with someone commuting the highways in a far-away city. Once I talked for nearly an hour from Vancouver with a ham on Lake Powell who described a lovely sunset from his part of the world.
Many hams earned their license to help communicate during times when their community needed help. During and after the windstorms along the Oregon coast in December 2007, ham radio operators dispatched police, fire, and other county personnel because the county radio system failed. Many of the hams who served along the coast were relatively new, and they used simple radio systems. After the Gulf hurricanes in 2005, hams helped rescue and support agencies with needed communications. Most communities lost their local public service communication facilities from wind and water damage, so ham radio filled the gap.
Ham radio operators often help with non-emergency events such as parades and large events like the Hood-to-Coast relay. The race course covers over 190 miles. Hams set up at most checkpoints which are 6-8 miles apart. They handle emergency and health-related communications along the route. Hams do this without pay as a community service.
The hams I’ve met all seem genuinely nice and helpful, and are usually willing to share what they know to help other hams. I’m sure some do not fit this pattern, but those folks apparently avoided meeting me. Most are willing to answer questions from a newbie, or help in the community when needed.
Ham radio includes many sub hobbies. Some became hams so they could communicate during search and rescue events. Others earned their license to help learn electronic principles and experiment (cell phones, and cable TV came from such experimentation). Still others joined so they could talk with people in distant places. My personal interests include using radios to support community and church events, participating in radio contests to improve my operating skill, and helping others earn their licenses. Sometimes I try my hand at building antennas with some modest success.
Ham radio provides a framework to learn many interesting things about our world. When I talk with someone in a distant place, I often look on a map to find where the other person lives. Radio waves obey physical laws, some of which we know little about. Some days I can talk easily with people in Denver, or Atlanta, and other days all I hear is static from the atmosphere energized by our sun. During a single day, I might hear east coast stations for several hours, and then as they fade away, stations from the Great Plains replace the east for a while before those stations, too, fade away into the noise. Is it magic? I still think so.

Northwest ham populations

The ham radio ranks continue growing in the Northwest. Over the past several months I've analyzed the number of ham licensees as the basis for a class project in school. I found the analysis both interesting and challenging.





The ham population roughly tracks the general population in the Northwest (defined and Oregon and Washington for this purpose), although there are anomalous pockets.


The map above shows the high ham concentration in three Puget Sound counties. The Portland metro area and Spokane also have high ham numbers. Two counties in SE Washington and three in North Central Oregon have very low numbers. These counties might be places to operate during state QSO parties or during county hunter activities. I expect quite a few folks would appreciate a few stations operating from those counties.








I found the map below much more interesting. The map shows the number of hams per thousand in the general population (based on the 2008 US Census county estimates). On the low end, many counties with low ham numbers also have low numbers per thousand. This may simply be the result of few hams who talk about their hobby, so few folks in the county get interested.

On the other side, the coastal counties of NW Washington and NW Oregon stand out. I know several clubs along the coast actively seek out hams for emergency communications, and local newspapers wrote several stories on ways hams helped their communities during storms.


Both Oregon and Washington have some of the highest ham population growth over the past several year, surpassed only by Utah, Idaho, and Nevada.