There are 600-800 amateur “radio hams” in Canberra chatting with people around the world and even bouncing signals off the moon and communicating with the International Space Station.

Despite the global reach of the Internet, old-school amateur radio is thriving, and Canberra Region Amateur Radio Club has one of the highest memberships in Australia. 

Armed with just a handheld radio and antennae, the sky’s the limit.

Club vice president Carl Makin said that when a “skip” occurred (where radio signals are bent back to Earth by the ionosphere), radio operators can communicate over thousands of miles.

“Shortwave communications can easily be reflected off the ionosphere and they can bounce around the world,” he said. “Just last week, I fired up my shortwave radio and I was exchanging contacts with people in Greece, France and England and across to the US.”

Sure you could use a mobile phone to call overseas but on amateur radio, reaching into the darkness and randomly connecting with another radio ham is a thrill.

“It’s like a visceral connection where my radio waves are actually impacting on them and I’m talking directly to this person, because it’s not a sure thing. If I know that I’m going to send a message and it’ll reach the guy 10 seconds later, there’s no excitement in that.”

Carl, 60, got his amateur radio licence when he was 18 and he now owns an 8.5-metre antennae to traverse the radio waves.

There are four repeaters (that receive low-power radio signals and re-transmit at a higher power) on Isaacs Ridge, plus one atop Mount Ginini – one of the highest repeaters in Australia.

“There are people out there bouncing signals off the moon and amateur satellites in orbit, including some radio gear on the International Space Station,” Carl said.

“You don’t require a lot of gear to access it, in fact, with a small homemade antenna and a handheld radio outside at the right time, you can talk via the repeater on the International Space Station. A lot of astronauts have a ham radio license on the station and during their free time, some of them jump on and have a chat to people.”

Amateur radio hobbyists are widely varied in their interests.

“You can go anywhere from just hunting contacts, literally having a ‘hello who are you, I’m this person and I can hear you this strongly’; right down to picking up a radio microphone and actually chatting,” Carl said.

Awards are offered by national radio organisations to people who contact 100 countries on all bands and all modes.

Over a couple of hours, Carl can make 30 or 40 contacts across the world and so far, he’s tallied about 80 countries.

“It’s really easy to get your first 50 and then suddenly you’re searching for things like an island in the middle of the Pacific that gets activated twice a year or stuff like that,” he said.

 “At the moment, we’re in a sunspot high so it’s excellent conditions for talking over long distances. During the day, it tends to be a longer distance and you might be on a higher frequency talking to Japan. During the night, it tends to be shorter distance and lower frequencies.”

Canberra call signs start with VK1 and they’ve been reverberating on the radio waves since 1951.

If you want to have your very own call sign, which you’ll keep for life, the Canberra Region Amateur Radio Club runs weekend foundation courses for $50. Info: crarc.org.au/education/