Until recently, my conception of the activity of amateur radio operators was that they crouch over microphones and chat with each other. A fun thing to do, for sure. Recently I learned that there is more to it than that.

At the Lompoc Airport, a small white cabin trailer, &#8220ARESC stenciled on its side, is parked on a bit of concrete slab just beyond the airport office. On a recent Saturday, Ray Lischka met me there for a look around, to see the headquarters of the Amateur Radio Emergency Service and its equipment 7 two radios that communicate from antenna to antenna; a scanner, which is a receiver only; and an aircraft radio that operates on the frequency used by pilots.

A couple of days before, Ray and I had sat around Dick Luce/s kitchen table talking about ham radio, how it works, and the services the amateur radio operators provide to the community. Dick and Ray, along with 35 others, are members of the Lompoc Amateur Radio Club, a group which, in addition to providing its members information and social interaction, maintains a &#8220repeaterC antenna on the highest point of Harris Grade Road. Radio transmission is interrupted by terrain, so the repeater extends Lompoc/s transmitting and receiving capability another 60 to 100 miles.

The Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) provides some of the community services we discussed. Santa Barbara County has four zones of service: northern, western, eastern and southern. Ray is Emergency Coordinator for the western zone, bounded by Jalama on the south, Drum Canyon on the east, and Vandenberg Air Force Base and Santa Maria on the north.

When there is a natural disaster such as a fire, earthquake or power blackout, telephone wires often fall; moreover, telephone companies are mandated to block cell phone frequencies so that fire and police departments can freely communicate. However, the amateur radio frequencies are not blocked. Therefore, ham radio operators can get distress messages and can communicate these messages to the proper agencies.

Remember the huge Oak Hill fire in October, 1994? Station 51 on Burton Mesa Road issued a call for help to surrounding communities. The county Office of Emergency Services contacted Ray and asked him to contact the Incident Commander, the man in charge of the fire-fighting operation. A staging area to coordinate the eating facilities, trucks with showers, toilet facilities, payroll centers and a tent city to house the firefighters was set up in the parking lot of the Village Shopping Center. Ray was asked to establish a network of radio stations around the perimeter of the fire that could communicate back to Station 51/s Incident Commander in the staging area.

It sometimes happens that responding units in a situation like this cannot communicate with each other. This is where the amateur radio operators come in. They are mobile, they carry their own power source of batteries or generators, and they can communicate with each other and with fire and police units.

During the statewide &#8220rolling power blackoutsC of 2000-2001, cell phones, telephones, radios and TVs were often out of commission. Amateur radio operators, power-independent, were able to receive and transmit messages.

A dramatic episode happened during Hurricane Katrina last year. Hang on, for it is complicated.

Ray/s fellow &#8220ham,C John, lives in the Five Cities area. A doctor in San Antonio, Texas, had 17 geriatric patients in Mercy Hospital in New Orleans. He could not get through to check on their status.

He contacted a ham radio operator friend, who is also a friend of John/s. The friend phoned John about the doctor/s dilemma.

Both John and the friend have VHF (very high frequency) radios which do not operate long distances; so John, knowing that Ray was equipped and licensed for long distance, quickly relayed the problem to him.

Ray immediately radioed the Salvation Army Network Control with the message. Ray later learned that his message was relayed to the hospital and that the doctor learned that his patients were OK.

We all remember the Y2K scare of 1999. The whole world was wondering what would happen when computers were confronted with a date change they were not equipped to handle. Would business come to a stand-still? Would operating systems everywhere fail? Cities all over the country designed exercises to protect citizens in the event of a catastrophic power failure.

ARES was invited by the city of Lompoc to participate in its planning. Ray and his team placed amateur radio stations around the city with a control center in Wal Mart/s parking lot. The plan was publicized, directing citizens to the parking lot if they had an emergency; ARES would relay their messages to the police department. Fortunately, that catastrophe did not happen. But if it had, ARES would have been there providing their unique service: relaying messages when other systems cannot.

A constant concern of ham operators is training, a somewhat lighter type being a contest called &#8220T-hunting,C meaning &#8220transmitter hunting.C The idea is to find a radio which has emitted a distress signal. For example, if a plane goes down, rescuers must be able to locate the signaling survivors. During a T-hunt, one team hides a transmitter and the other teams, using hand-held antenna, roam the area trying to pick up the signal. When they do, they follow it until they find the transmitter. The first team there wins. Shortly after 9/11, a passerby saw a hunting team sweeping an area with an antenna and whispered: &#8220Are you guys with Homeland Security?C

Actually, at times, security at home is what they are all about, these volunteers who use their special know-how to help us if disaster strikes.

Good job, ARES!

Allie Kay Spaulding can be reached at alliekay@verizon .net.