SEMO HAM RADIO CLUB IN CONTEST

SEMO Amateur Radio Club members bounced radio waves off the ionosphere Saturday afternoon as part of a contest that covered most of North America.

Ralph Frye, club president, said the contest was to see how many contacts the club could make during a 27-hour period that included this morning. Clubs from throughout the nation and Canada participated.

And despite the fact a plaque is awarded the most successful team, Frye said the real goal is to allow clubs to practice emergency radio procedures.

Most radio clubs use ham radios working on emergency power generators or batteries. Some clubs operated on wind and solar power.

"You get extra points for working off of low power," Frye said.

It is training for working under adverse conditions, like those produced by a natural disaster, that would require all-night contact with emergency departments and working off batteries.

The types of contacts established will change as the day turns into night. "Night is better for the lower frequencies. Higher frequencies work better in the daytime," Frye said. "At night you can go almost around the world."

The contacts are very quick, just long enough to exchange call letters. But those letters supplied a wide range of information, said John Frye, Brian Frye's brother and the group's Morse code expert.

John Frye said the contact's location, size, power source and number of radios used could all be conveyed through the call letters.

The contacts are established by operators getting on a band and frequency and asking for a CQ. "No one's really sure where CQ came from but now it is just a request for contact," John Frye said.

The SEMO club received its first contact just after the contest began. It was a club in Ohio. The club responded to a group in Colorado moments later as that club's first contact.

The contest started at the same moment across the country. Ralph Frye said there were rules and procedures to ensure clubs did not talk to the same contacts twice.

He said the group expected to contact hundreds of clubs during the contest.

Each contact was to be recorded and sent to the American Radio Relay League, the event's sponsor. John Frye said the contest has been held for at least the past 35 years.

Larry Huey of Scott City said there are many factors that will determine how far a signal will go. Huey is a member of the SEMO club and has a ham radio at his home.

He said the ionosphere is the atmospheric level that the radio waves bounce off. That layer expands and contracts throughout a 24-hour period, altering where the signal will go. Also, the sun plays a large factor in the signal's strength.

Huey said the number of solar flares is in a detrimental cycle for ham radio operation, "but next year will be a whole lot better."