Playing at Radio

By Christian Payne, G5DOC

I wonder how many radio amateurs share a similar origin story . . . Mine was an ‘accidental’ journey into radio, born out of curiosity. A small receiver, something you could carry -- one that worked on batteries. Voices appearing from nowhere and everywhere.

It started with my Grandad

Grandad had short wave radios all around the house (one of them shown in photo). Listening was continuous, and he could do it in five languages. For me, twisting dials and pushing buttons was actively encouraged. Nothing was locked away from me; as a small kid, the result was that radio felt magical. Not because it was incomprehensible, but because it was just understandable enough. I don’t remember being taught radio back then, but I could grasp the idea that signals existed all around us and that, with the right box, you could catch them. 

There was very little between the thing in your hands and the world it connected you to. An antenna . . . a speaker, and a tuning knob. It was ‘cause and effect’ that you could bring to life with a twist of the dial. There was this sense of portability with my shortwave radio that was key, and this portability continued with a pair of toy-like walkie talkies. When I got my first 'proper' transceiver, it was a handheld CB Radio. It could also go anywhere. Out into the garden . . . Up a tree . . .  Down the road. And I did it all.

Later, attached to my bicycle. It was certainly a step up from the walkie talkies. Switch it on. Talk. Listen. Invent identities and make friends. Soon it was time to build a station, and get the antenna as high as my parents would allow. Then I realized the bike was a mini-mast. I could pedal to the top of a hill, where height was certainly might.

Bicycles and Radios Seemed to Belong Together

Both bikes and radios represented independence and freedom. Both extended your range just far enough to feel expansive, to get a sense of a larger world than the immediate neighborhood. My bike and my radio were at the center of so much play, yet they never felt like toys. We knew how to have fun as kids and for our little gang of wannabe Goonies and BMX Bandits, it was an absolute blast.

Riding along with a radio on the handlebars meant we weren’t just getting from one place to the next. We were networked and communicating beyond it. The excitement wasn’t just speed or distance, but the idea that you could explore on your own terms while taking friends along for the ride. We were never alone and always had backup, right there on channel 14. On an eight-mile bike ride you could ask a friend to meet you at a secret location and then talk them in. We were reassuringly connected by default. Online today we now call this “ambient connectivity,” where technology is woven into the background of everything we do. While there certainly could have been what we called “earwiggers” listening in, there were no algorithms in the way. There were no adverts and there was no data mining taking place behind our conversations. While some reported trolls desperate for attention, I’m told those could be dealt with using nothing more than a pin in a length of coax. (That is, allegedly dealt with.)

The Movement to Amateur Radio

In my neighborhood, some CB operators grew up into radio amateurs. They amplified the magic until it felt like wizardry and out of reach to me. They told me that I was just playing at radio, and I guess that I was. But the pull of communicating the way the amateur operators did never left me and I got my license in the end. Thirty years later in fact!

As adults, many of us found our way back to radio after years of living with far more mind-blowing technology. Phones that can do almost anything, yet explain absolutely nothing. Devices that work flawlessly while remaining completely opaque. You press a piece of glass and trust that some vast, invisible system will do all the rest.

Yet our kind of radio still feels different to me.

Even with little grasp of propagation, harmonics, or velocity factors, the system remains understandable. A signal leaves an antenna. Another antenna hears it. Physics intervenes. Meteorology intervenes. Geography intervenes. Sometimes luck intervenes. But not platforms, feeds, or behavioral optimization.

That’s why portable radio still holds such great appeal for me. You have a handheld, a simple antenna, in a setup you can carry with you. So much fun in a tiny package. The magic is easy to wield because it is self-contained. I can just about get my head around how this works and that's enough for now. This infinite hobby will always leave me room for curiosity. It’s the only pastime that has this many paths to go down, where one can remain curious the entire time. It feels like the same love I had as a kid, just expressed through shiny new toys with more modes and slightly better batteries.

So many radio amateurs must carry these same thoughts with them. That is, the memory of freedom, of communicating, coordinating and networking before the web. Of being connected without being slowly consumed by the technology.

The beautiful part about radio is that it doesn’t just deliver communication. It has and still does bring us together. It rewards our attention and curiosity with joy and learning. It asks you to meet it halfway. It sharpens our senses, quickens our minds and prevents the onslaught of brain stagnation.

When I make a contact now, especially with simple or portable gear, I feel the same joy I felt in those early years. It’s like bringing something to life from my youth . . . Not just because this technology feels more honest and open than most of what we have today, but because you’re working against what feels like impossible odds. You’re putting something out there, and it either all works or it doesn't,

Working up through the license classes rewarded me with new knowledge, but all I was really after was a little more freedom and more places to play. I’m still “playing at radio,” just as I was as a kid. Of course, we were just having fun back then – but if you’re lucky, you still are. And now the playground is a whole lot bigger!

73, Christian (Photo above)

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