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Ham It Up: Old pros and novices flock to Forsyth to share an interest in radio
Journal Photo by Bruce Chapman
Jim Austin of New London digs around in search of vacuum tubes for 1960s-era radios at the annual sale.
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Published: June 15, 2008
James Gutshall Jr. left the radio-equipment sale at the Dixie Classic Fairgrounds yesterday without buying anything.
But buying something wasn't really the point of going to the sale, he said. He was browsing for electronics equipment and chatting with people who, like him, are amateur radio enthusiasts.
"It's sort of like a yard sale for old electronics," said Gutshall, 27, who got his radio license when he was 12. "I like to go to the Hamfest, just to remind me of what I got into."
The Winston-Salem Classic Hamfest is organized by a local club of ham radio operators, the Forsyth Amateur Radio Club. The event drew a few hundred people to the fairgrounds yesterday morning. Radio enthusiasts shopped through table after table of electronics, from microphones to antennae to 12-volt tubes.
Gutshall brought his neighbor, John Konopinski, hoping to introduce him to a new hobby. Konopinski is a truck driver who became interested when he heard Gutshall talk about using a radio to communicate with astronauts on the Mir space station.
Konopinski said he likes the nostalgia of radio and wants to go beyond the CB radios he uses for work.
"It's intriguing to me that you can get into that equipment and be able to communicate with people worldwide," he said.
Forsyth's Hamfest is one of 15 in the state, said Tim Slay, the North Carolina section manager for the American Radio Relay League. The state's largest gathering for ham-radio fans is organized by the Shelby Amateur Radio Club and draws about 13,000, Slay said.
Slay explained that one challenge for radio clubs is that while the number of radio operators has generally remained steady, the average age of radio operators is increasing. Clubs need to sell the appeal of radio to a younger generation, he said.
"You can talk all over the world with a wire strung between two trees," he said.
Some radio enthusiasts are trained in spotting weather storms and radio that information to the National Weather Service. Many get into it because they like being able to help during emergencies. Appropriately, Slay had a poster at his table that read, "When all else fails…Amateur Radio."
When phone systems get overloaded or Internet connections go down, the airwaves still work, and radio operators can help emergency workers communicate.
Van Key, an electronics technician for R.J. Reynolds, went to Mississippi with the Men's Ministries of the N.C. Baptist State Convention with his radio to relay messages after Hurricane Katrina.
The local radio club is part of an international competition on June 28 in which radio operators get points for the number of messages they can transmit during a simulated disaster scenario. The club will be broadcasting all day at Hobby Park.
Key, like Gutshall, has done his part to spread the gospel of amateur radio. Michael Scriven, a bail bondsman, was at a gas station in 1999 when he saw that the license plate on Key's old jeep had an odd combination of numbers and letters. It was Key's call sign, the identity he goes by on the airwaves.
The two got to talking and Scriven became more and more interested. He now owns his own equipment, has his own radio license and brought his two sons, Morgan, 10, and Michael, 15, to Hamfest to see if the hobby attracts them.
Scriven said that for him, the attraction was simple.
"One, I like to talk," he said. "I like being in the company of all different walks of life."
■ Dan Galindo can be reached at 727-7377 or at dgalindo@wsjournal.com.
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