Despite new technology radio club celebrates 100 years

EVESHAM - A map of the world is displayed across a computer monitor. Seven small circles, representing satellites, float across the map in incremental jumps.

Joe Fisher is in a trailer, the kind one might use to get kids' bicycles to the shore. To his left are speakers, radios, microphones, computers, and cables — lots and lots of cables.

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Fisher is operating a radio, but his job is not to send waves from one receiver to another. He's waiting for that perfect moment when the satellites on his screen are directly overhead. That's when he has to strike.

As quickly as he can, Fisher has to link up with one of those satellites and use it to communicate with another operator somewhere in the United States. For Fisher, that's worth 100 points, and he has 24 hours to make it happen.

Fisher started playing around with amateur radio, also known as ham radio, in high school when an instructor let him and his buddies start a small radio club. But he said his love for technology runs even deeper.

"I remember as a 2-year-old putting headphones on and hearing Morse code," Fisher said. "I remember that day when (my dad) put headphones on me and I heard Morse code and I guess you could say it was in my genes."

Fisher's father passed away roughly six months later.

He's just one of two-dozen or so members of the South Jersey Radio Association taking part in a nationwide contest known as Field Day. It's a day where amateur radio enthusiasts and their organizations turn nearby fields into a 24-hour headquarters as they race to contact more operators than anyone else in the country.

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But the experiences that bring people there are myriad.

Pat Doyle started playing with radios when he was 12, interested in a technology that allowed him to talk to his uncle on the other side of the country. In a time before the rise of the internet and cellphones, the capabilities of the technology were incredible.

Rizal Malong was an emergency radio operator in the military in Hawaii before moving to New Jersey in 2000. After years of watching his equipment gather dust under his bed he finally joined the club and utilized the old skill once more.

In the contest, the SJRA has a bit of an advantage. Their president, Ken Botterbrodt, has had a lot of time to get his supplies together. In the far corner of their site at Savich Field in Marlton, there's an RV with the sole purpose of being used for radio communications. Botterbrodt owns it, just like two of the 50-foot tall antennas outside, and for the rest of the day three other club members are constantly chattering into their headsets, trying to make contact with the outside world.

"Field Day, this is K2 alpha alpha," rings simultaneously from the three operators in the trailer.  K2AA is the designation they use to identify their group.

Last year, the club came in fourth, but they were winners the year before that. They compete with approximately 4,000 other people and organizations.

The club celebrated its 100th birthday earlier this month despite a tide of new technology that's seemingly pushed radio to the back of the pack. Communicating across enormous distances is now easier than ever thanks to the internet, and people can talk and video chat on their cellphones from just about anywhere thanks to cellular data.

"A lot of people think this is outdated technology, but it's really not," said Al Witner, a club member. "There are more amateur radio operators now than there's ever been in history."

Fisher said that new technology has only added to the enjoyment of amateur radio.

"Everything we used to do by paper and pencil we now do with the computer," Fisher said. "Everything we're doing with (satellite) tracking, that was never possible before."

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The South Jersey Radio Association is no newcomer to the community though, in fact, it's the oldest continuously operating amateur radio club in North America.

In June of 1916, 13 men gathered in the home of William G. Phillips in Collingswood to organize the first official meeting of what was then called the South Jersey Wireless Association. Each of the men came primed with an interest to operate radios and to make contact with people far away from them.

The SJRA was certainly not the first amateur radio club, others like it were popping up all over the place during the same period. What set it apart was its ability to survive World War I, something many were not as fortunate to do.

In order to avoid disruption over the airwaves, then-President Woodrow Wilson suspended the use of radios by civilians in 1917, less than a year after the group's inception. Many amateur stations either shut down or were taken over by the government. But the SJRA became an exception, and the government allowed the group of enthusiasts to continue operating for years so that they could be utilized if the military needed more men, said Mark Walters, the club's new historian.

Not much has changed 100 years later. The club is even more active, with even more members, and everyone is still ready to step up if modern communication is ever found unavailable.

"They know we're here," Botterbrodt said.