Ham radio system donated and installed at the fire hall

A century-old technology has been added to Petersburg's fire hall for emergency communication when all else fails.

Amateur radio —or ham radio— is a form of two-way radio communication that allows specially licensed operators to communicate over long distances using radio frequencies reserved for non-commercial use.

Think walkie-talkie, but much more powerful. Depending on the equipment and frequency range, ham radio operators can communicate with neighboring communities, countries on the other side of the world, or even space.

Ham radio is both a hobby for the electronically-inclined and serves as a reliable communication resource.

Using specific "nets" —designated frequencies— licensed ham radio operators can socialize with other hobbyists as well as help out during emergencies by keeping communities in touch when regular communication goes down.

Ham radios can function powered by battery or other alternative energy sources. Even the government regards ham radio as a dependable backup communication system for emergency or disaster scenarios where cellular and internet grids no longer work.

Amateur radio operators —also called hams— in the U.S. have a specific license granted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that legally permits them to transmit on certain frequency bands. Licensing prevents radio interference and ensures that operators know proper radio procedure and safety protocols.

Licensed operators can register with a nearby Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) to volunteer their ham radio skills and training in the event of an emergency. Alaska has a few thousand licensed operators, and several amateur radio clubs, including a couple ARES, for Alaskan hams to join if they so choose.

When the world's second-largest earthquake ever recorded shook Alaska in 1964, government and private communication systems failed; but ham radio operators were able to restore communication because their transmissions did not rely on towers or landlines, which were destroyed by the 9.2 magnitude earthquake in Prince William Sound.

The Alaska-Pacific emergency preparedness net —or A-P net— originated as a result, and now has over a hundred hams checking in to the designated frequency each week.

Petersburg resident and ham radio operator Gary Treffry is a member of the A-P net.

Anyone can listen in to a ham radio transmission, so long as they have a system capable of receiving those ham bands —frequency ranges reserved for amateur radio use. However, a license is required in order to personally broadcast.

"Once you've participated in a net fairly regularly for a while ... you get to know those people better than most people know their next door neighbor," Treffry said sincerely.

He is friends with hams in Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, Hawaii, throughout the country and around the world.

"You'll get to know people all over the globe and ... once you get to know them, you can travel all over the damn world and ... have a place to go and stay."

Treffry has had ham radio in his life since he was a kid, first taking interest in what would become a life-long hobby while working as a farm hand north of Spokane for his neighbor, who was a dairy farmer as well as a ham radio operator.

"He had his ham radio stuff in the milking parlor," Treffry recalled. "I'd go in there and he'd be milking cows, you know, and he'd have his ham radio on. And so I got interested in it..."

He told the Pilot he has been a ham radio operator since he was 13 years old.

There were a handful of ham radio operators in the closest small town, about 10 miles away. Treffry remembers going on "transmitter hunts" which he described as hide-and-go-seek, but using directional finding antennas to seek out a hidden person transmitting from a parked car — a similar set up to the red Subaru he currently drives around town, custom equipped with an antenna and solar panels on top, and his ham radio call-sign as his license plate.

He often parks at The Petersburg Volunteer Fire Department fire hall, which he describes as "a superb location..."

"One of the things that makes it really good is that wet muskeg," Treffry explained of the expansive landscape immediately behind the station. "It provides a super good ground electrically conductive to earth ... this wet muskeg is almost like having ... a great big copper sheet out there."

Treffry recently donated his ham radio equipment to the borough, which has now been set up at PVFD with all the bells and whistles — or more specifically, transceivers, antennas, amplifier, tuners, wires, power supplies and various other pieces of equipment; even a custom-built corner shelf to house the indoor tech that connects to the system outside.

He designed and built the entire ham radio antenna system and helped set it up this fall behind the fire hall, adjacent to the expansive muskeg.

"One thing about the station, there's double redundancy with everything. Two transmitter receivers, two separate antennas and separate power supplies ... basically, it's fail-proof," Treffry told the Pilot while looking for a wrench.

He was working on the final steps of setting up the system, specifically the connections for the long wire antenna, with the assistance of Emergency Services Director Aaron Hankins, who was burying a conduit.

To have interested folks to operate the system on behalf of the borough in emergency scenarios, as well as create a community space for ham hobbyists, the borough intends to establish a local ham radio club in Petersburg, based out of the PVFD fire hall.

"The idea is to allow [hams] to still do their own thing, but with the donated equipment from Gary, the borough ... will have a publicly managed ham radio site to maintain communications when all else fails," Hankins told the Pilot.

Hankins said part of the initial idea behind standing up a ham radio club is to have that emergency service option readily available in the borough, citing the mention of an ARES site in Petersburg Borough's 2010 disaster response plan.

"We are islands ... there's no one we can just drive down the road and get communications from," he said, "but we hope to have that added [ham communication] capability."

Hankins said the PVFD Association is going to manage the club and its members will need to submit to a background check because it will take place inside of the fire department, "That's the only real hurdle there..."

He is working on contacting the other couple of hams in town, and hopes "to have more info out soon, now that we are getting the rest of this together..."

"[Treffry] has contributed a lot ... and I hope that we never have to use his contribution in an emergency fashion, but we'll definitely be very glad to have this capability if the need arises," concluded Hankins.