By Sandra Pedicini
February 14, 2005

Central Florida ham radio operators have had quite a year.

During this past summer's hurricanes, many stayed in shelters providing
backup communications to American Red Cross officials. And one, University
of Central Florida professor Charles Harpole, helped provide communications
in the wake of December's deadly tsunami.

Amateur radio operators from the Southeastern United States gathered this
past weekend for HamCation. Attendance -- an estimated 8,000 people -- was
up from the previous year, when about 6,000 attended.

The hurricanes might have renewed some ham radio operators' interest in
their hobby, said Cindy Radice, chairman of this year's event.

"People who have been in radio who perhaps were tired of it a little bit,
it's renewing their interest," she said.

Ham radio operators use two-way radio stations to make contacts around the
world, communicating by voice, computers and Morse code.

Many of the amateur radio operators attending this weekend's event appeared
to be in their 50s, 60s and 70s. Attracting new generations of amateur radio
operators can be "a bit of a struggle," Radice said, particularly with so
much newfangled technology attracting younger people.

But Harpole, who conducted a seminar on Saturday about his experience after
the tsunami, said young people overlooking ham radio are missing out.

Amateur radio provides a challenge, a way for people to meet people from
other cultures and provide community service, he said.

"The thing I wish we would do more is appeal to the idea of adventure and
secret communication," he said.

Harpole said he had originally planned to set up a ham radio operation when
he visited the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, in the Bay of Bengal between
India and Thailand, in December.

Harpole never got the chance to train anyone in ham radio operations.
Instead, he helped provide communications after the earthquake and resulting
tsunami.

For about 20 hours, he and his fellow ham radio operators -- sometimes using
car batteries to run their radios -- relayed information to the mainland,
helping survivors contact relatives and friends.

It wasn't Harpole's first experience pitching in after a natural disaster.
As a teenager, Harpole said, he helped with communications after a flood hit
Southern Illinois in the late 1950s. During the summer's hurricanes, Harpole
got eyewitness reports from the Caribbean before the storms headed to
Florida, and he relayed the information to the National Hurricane Center.

Many ham radio operators tend to have adventurous spirits, Harpole said,
mentioning how a group of ham radio operators are on an expedition to a
remote island off the coast of Antarctica.

But ham radio operators are savvy about other types of communication as
well.

When asked how he'd heard about the Antarctica expedition, Harpole smiled.

"The Internet," he said.

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