BLOOMINGTON - The ham-radio hobby Calvin Lunny and Keith Hanson pursue is more than just talk.

It's a way to grasp the meaning of the words, "It's a small world after all."

Differences among governments and bickering over how people worship their god melt away as they send radio beams up to the ionosphere to see where they land. They wind up talking to ham operators on the other side of the planet.

Recent changes in licensing rules that will no longer require knowing Morse Code will open long-distance ham-radio frequencies to more people by the end of this month, they said. The code requirement was previously abandoned for ham radio frequencies that travel shorter distances with the aid of instruments called repeaters.

"I like talking to people from different cultures," said Hanson, president of the Bloomington-based Central Illinois Radio Club.

Politics and religion are the only two topics "hams" generally avoid. But attitudes still come through the speakers. For example, Hanson talked to people in Kuwait who were genuinely grateful for U.S. invention after the first Gulf War.

"It's not like that now," he said.

Hanson got hooked on long-distance radio as a boy during the Cuban Missile Crisis of the early 1960s while listening to short-wave news broadcasts from London, Havana, Washington, D.C., and Moscow. The slant each station put on the same events was an eye-opener, he said. He got involved in ham radio in high school in Minnesota. A few people had the knowledge to help him get started. Other students wanted to join in, and they soon started a club.

With ham radio, Hanson was able to slice through the propaganda on both sides of the Cold War and talk directly to people living in the former Soviet Union.

"Part of the draw is to talk to the 'evil.' They aren't evil. They are people like you and me," he said.

For Lunny, ham radio is a way to "travel" without ever leaving home.

"I really get off talking to people in places where I've been," he said. "I traveled in Europe … Ireland, Germany and Yugoslavia, the UK, Sweden, Norway. People like to practice their English."

"We are lucky, the language of the world is English," agreed Hanson.

Lunny often travels by car for work. He was part of the citizens band radio craze in the 1980s until the radio bands turned to "chaos," he said. For a while, he tried the tamer single-side band CB radios where operators were more polite and technology let him reach out farther. He once spoke to Australia on his unit when conditions were just right. The number of the sun's rays striking the earth's upper atmosphere and solar disturbances can aid or hinder radio transmissions. He eventually migrated to ham radio to avoid boredom on the road.

"Ham is more gentlemanly. Everyone has to identify themselves (by assigned call signs.) You can look them up. Accountability really works in policing it," Lunny said.

Both men had to learn Morse Code to pass the test required by the Federal Communications Commission, which polices ham radio in the United States.

"I didn't like it one bit," Lunny said.

Hanson is an instructor of a course on ham radio taught at Heartland Community College in Normal. He also monitors the FCC exams given several times a year at Bloomington police headquarters. He likens learning code to learning a foreign language. He's seen children as young as 10 catch on immediately while older people struggle.

"The best time to learn a foreign language is when you're young," he said.

Other countries were first to remove the code requirements for the frequencies that can be beamed around the world.

U.S. radio operators content to stay on frequencies that normally broadcast signals a relatively short distance have been free of the code requirement for several years. The U.S. military and maritime sailors already have abandoned the use of code for longer distances. The recently announced rule revisions extend the no-code requirement to civilians.

Lunny and Hanson agreed the change will be good for ham radio. More new blood may be attracted to the hobby. Many enthusiasts who became involved years ago are going "SK," code shorthand for "silent key," meaning they are dying off, Lunny said.

Still, Hanson doesn't expect a huge influx of new hams. Some will join, he said, and people licensed now solely for short-distance bands will likely become certified so they can talk long distance. From there, they can take part in the fun of contests where competitors vie to see how many operators they can reach in different nations within a certain time frame, often one or two days. A member of the Central Illinois Radio Club is so proficient at the contests he often reaches 1,000 to 2,000 other operators worldwide.

Most often, the hobby is more relaxed. Operators simply try to see how many different countries they can reach over time. In the old days, the practice was called "paper chasing" because operators would trade postcards by mail confirming the contact. Today, logs are kept online. Lunny has chatted with operators in more than 100 countries on every continent. Hanson, who has been in the hobby much longer, has reached about 300 different countries.

"It's all about bragging rights," said Hanson, who spoke to operators in Botswana and Lakshadweep, a small island off the coast of India on the morning of the interview for this article.

Cell phones have replaced some uses for ham radio on land. But the radios still provide the best communications for sailing boats and other vessels at sea.

Some operators get into the technical side of ham radio and build their own equipment. Others link radios to the Internet to enhance communication. While mobile, Lunny can link with a Global Positioning Satellite system to track his location while using the radio to send an e-mail to his wife. Other operators upload messages to satellites orbiting the earth for other operators on the other side of the planet to download when the satellite reaches them.

Ham radio operators worldwide pitch in during disasters and emergencies. For example, Hanson said the CIRC is reactivating a network of weather spotters. He once picked up a signal from a party in a remote part of South America about a member experiencing a medical emergency involving his eyes. Hanson patched the call through so they could talk directly to doctors who were able to offer advice.

The world isn't the only smaller place thanks to ham radio. Space is shrinking, too. Ham radio operators can talk with astronauts on space shuttles, or as they orbit the earth on the space station.

"You run across people with totally fantastic backgrounds," Hanson said.

Getting started

• New high-frequency radios can start at $700 to $900.

• Antennaes can be costly but good ones range from about $300 to $1,000. A workable one can be made of wire for about $100. An antenna tuner can add another $200.

• Some frequencies allow signals of up to 1,500 watts. Most radios are sold at 100 watts. Equipment to boost a radio's power costs about $1,000.

• Read "Now You're Talking," published by the American Radio Relay League at www.arrl.org.

• For information about the Central Illinois Radio Club, call (309) 378-4416 or email AC9S@mchi.com. Visit the club's web site at http://www.qsl.net/w9aml.

Source: Calvin Lunny and Keith Hanson