By Dave Heun, Chicago Daily Herald
Original publication date: Jan. 24

Jim Robbie of Moline pulled a Zenith Radionic vacuum tube from his pocket and proclaimed, “These are hard to find, and this is a good place to find it.”

Robbie was one of hundreds of ham radio enthusiasts filling the exhibit hall Sunday at the Kane County Fairgrounds in St. Charles for the Wheaton Community Radio Amateurs club’s annual Mid-Winter Hamfest.

Robbie, a ham radio user for the past 23 years, was attending the show with Dave Mayfield of Moline, a friend he met as a young kid on a ham radio.

“We like to come to this show, and in the past it was really huge,” Mayfield said. “But in recent years, eBay has really knocked out sales for dealers at flea markets like this.”

That didn’t stop hamfest attendees from closely looking over rows of radio transmitters and transceivers, coils, antennae, batteries and mounts.

Dale Kwarta, a member in the Wheaton club since 1983, said the attendance at any ham radio event is down because it is one of numerous “aging hobbies.”

Kwarta believes that young people don’t realize that ham radio technology is something that will be used in some form or another the rest of their lives.

“This is not a phone,” Kwarta said, while taking his cell phone out of his pocket. “It is a cellular radio with a computer in it. Cell phones came from our ham radio technology.

“Hams have been making phone calls out of their cars for free for years,” Kwarta said.

If the era of ham radios is being affected by the world of cell phones, text messaging, Internet and chat rooms, it is still vital in the world of emergency communications when amateurs are called in to help during a crisis or for support at major public events.

John Cheney, chairman of the Communications Support Unit trailer on site at the hamfest, said the set of transmitters and transceivers of different frequency levels in the trailer are used for communication operations at various parades or big fundraising events.

Cheney said the Wheaton Club and others like it are part of the Radio Amateur Civilian Emergency Service, allowing them to have radios that can communicate with government equipment if their services are requested during a crisis.

Cheney agreed with others who believe that younger people are not getting involved in ham radios, but he feels that a young person interested in science and technology will continue to be involved.

“Our club is a general interest club, so we have people who are high-frequency enthusiasts, public service, VHF, UHF, pretty much everything,” Cheney said. 

The biggest building was filled Sunday at the Mid-Winter Hamfest at the Kane County fairgrounds in St. Charles. The Wheaton Community Radio Amateurs held the event that attracts hundreds of hobbyists.

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