In case of emergency, turn to your ham

By Cassie Tomlin

Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2008 | 3:35 p.m.

Before chat rooms, instant messengers, cell phones and pagers, there was ham.

Amateur radio may have serious competition with newer technology, but one local enthusiast wants to assemble a system of ham operators for an emergency, when computers may not work.

John Fay — maybe better known by his call signal, K7FAY — wants to organize a Boulder City emergency response group.

From his den jammed with radios, reactors and antennas, Fay is Boulder City's contact for Clark County's Amateur Radio Emergency Service. If all phone and Internet service were wiped out, Fay would help the police and fire chiefs coordinate reactions and rescues.

Boulder City has 100 Federal Communications Commission-licensed ham operators, Fay said, and he hopes he can get a group together to maintain communications locally.

Fay and his wife, Cara, or KD6OEF, moved to Boulder City from Los Angeles two years ago, where John Fay frequently used his radios to check on earthquakes and fires.

He said Boulder City is "kind of isolated," and it could benefit from the fail-safe communication system the wireless radios could provide if traditional methods go down.

He would like to see the group work together in more than just dire situations, Fay said. He foresees a group of people sharing a common fascination with the federally mandated airwaves for hobbyists.

About 9 a.m. Aug. 27, Fay called to all ham operators on a handheld, using linked transmission and reception repeaters. Users in Alaska, San Francisco, Apple Valley, Calif., and Houston responded.

"Any city you go into, you have a friend. You many not know them," he said.

On the Fays' Hawaiian honeymoon, for example, local hams acted as tour guides and provided directions.

"It's like a fraternity," he said.

John Fay has at least one active colleague in town — Dave Floyd, who runs Radio World, a Marshall Plaza shop crammed floor to ceiling with everything for two-way radios.

Floyd, whose business card notes his call sign, W9MPD, got his first license in 1955 in Illinois at age 14 and never let it expire.

He said though ham radio methods have remained the same, nobody builds their own radios anymore as they used to.

"Back in the old days, a Chevrolet cost $1,000, and so did some of the radios," he said.

Now, he's got radios at his shop for about $200, and study guide books for the FCC license test for $25.

Floyd stumbled upon his father's radio in the family's attic and became a member of the Egyptian Radio Club — southern Illinois used to be called Little Egypt — but he doesn't think youngsters are as interested these days.

"You've got kids on computers hacking programs, and analog radio is dinosaur bait to them," he said.

After his childhood, he had a long relationship with the radios.

During the Vietnam War, he worked at an aircraft manufacturer in California and at 2 a.m. would use ham radio to patch phone calls through from soldiers to their families who couldn't pay the long distance fees.

In about 1966, while he worked at NASA in Houston, he heard a strange call number over the ham radio and responded. He found the caller was a doctor aboard a Navy hospital ship 200 miles into the ocean from San Diego, which had been caught in a typhoon and some of its sailors hurt.

Floyd called the Navy base in San Diego, which sent helicopters to rescue the injured sailors.

Floyd's business is up for sale, but he said even if he sells it soon, he won't give upon his lifelong hobby.

"I'm going home to plant antenna seeds, watch them grow and play with the radio," he said.

Cassie Tomlin can be reached at 948-2073 or [email protected].