story by: Glyn Mon Hughes

The renowned broadcaster Alistair Cooke once said he preferred radio to TV ​because the pictures are better.

Cooke’s Letter from America was a mainstay on BBC Radio for almost six decades ​and painted vivid vocal pictures from across the ‘pond’.

But what about those who contact each other to share their thoughts, ​sometimes with complete strangers? They paint an equally entrancing picture of ​their own lives, families, hobbies, work and individual interests. Many of those ​will be amateurs.

The Radio Society of Great Britain was formed in 1913, fully nine years before the ​first word was heard from what was then the British Broadcasting Company. ​Amateur Radio – also known as ‘ham’ radio: the acronym ‘HAM’ has several ​possible unproven derivations – has thousands, probably millions, of devotees ​around the globe all keen to chat.

As Lindsay Pearson, the East Anglian-based former secretary of the now defunct ​Rotarians of Amateur Radio (ROAR, for short) Fellowship, put it: “It’s ​communication with someone at the end of the road, right through to Australia ​and it depends on matters of physics whether the signal gets from A to B, or ​whether it gets there at all.

“Our Fellowship, which had members in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Europe, ​the USA and the UK, formed a ‘net’ or network, where a group met on a certain ​frequency at a certain time and had a conversation. There are a few rules, like ​not talking about politics or sex, as it’s a public network and anyone can listen in ​with the right equipment.”

While the Fellowship is currently off-air, there are hopes it will be revived. In ​something of a possible prelude to restoration, a number of Rotarians will be ​supporting World Polio Day on October 24th via the medium of amateur radio.

“We’ve got a Special Event Licence from Ofcom which allows us to talk to any ​other radio amateur across the world,” said Lindsay. “We can also share the ​operation of it with members. We can have, perhaps, 20 members spread ​around the UK and across the world who will operate with a call sign which is, in ​this case, GB4WPD.

“The plan is to operate for a few days before the event, on World Polio Day itself ​and then a few days after. We’re looking to bracket the day with, perhaps, a week ​either side.”

There’s an invitation for any Rotarian who is into amateur radio to make contact.

“If we get contact from people, we are willing to let them use the call sign at a ​time to suit them,” added Lindsay.

“We can then set up a rota and we’d like to get the radio station operating the call ​sign for as long as we can. We need to get as many people as we can to cover ​whatever times we can.

“But there are four of five of us who we know will operate and we will try to do ​that on October 24th from early in the morning until late in the evening and the ​conversation will be mostly around polio and the efforts to eradicate it.”

There is an international website dedicated to amateur radio which uses the ​code QRZ – Morse shorthand for ‘who are you?’ There will be several pages ​devoted to Rotary and its involvement with World Polio Day. There will also be a ​more specific website devoted to the day, which will be the GB4WPD site.

Morse code was a major part of amateur radio’s required skills, a communication ​method rarely used these days, though it is, as Lindsay explained, gaining ​traction again.

“Computing has changed all communications and computers can now send and ​decode Morse and that is attracting a new, younger generation,” he said. “You ​can tell a computer to put out a call and other computers will answer. I do find ​that strange!”

Amateur radio is often seen as a niche pastime – ‘a hobby where people talk ​about their hobby, using their hobby’ one observer noted.

“Amateur radio is more than a century old, and I can communicate where there ​is no mains supply and no internet. And when the mobile network goes down, I ​can still communicate and talk to people right across the world,” added Lindsay.

He lifted a small box which turns out to be a radio transmitter and receiver which ​works from the power of an off-the-shelf supermarket battery. “I’ve used this to ​communicate with Romania and the Czech Republic and Slovakia, in Morse, I ​hasten to add,” noted Lindsay. “The entire kit cost £35.”

That’s £35 well spent if it takes the message of World Polio Day to a global ​audience.

“If you have an amateur radio licence, please get in touch,” said Lindsay. “We’d ​like 30 to 40 operators over the fortnight and you are free to use my call sign ​G3VNT or email gb4wpd@gmail.com.”