Lebanon man helps equip ham radio Olympics

David Olean stands beside the derrick assembly he constructed in his Dixon Road workshop. (Harrison Thorp photo)

This week the greatest ham radio operators in the world will be in New England to see who is the best of the best, and a local man played a key role in designing equipment they’ll use.

David Olean of Lebanon, who got his first ham radio operator’s license in 1962, designed part of the derrick assembly that will be used to raise antennas used by contestants in this year’s World Radiosport Team Championship, which will be held at 59 locations spanning much of the I-495 corridor in Massachusetts.

Olean, besides being a devout amateur radio aficionado, knows something about antennas. He owned his own business, Directive Systems, for years out of his Dixon Road home.

You can see his antennas atop the West Lebanon hills from Milton as well.

Olean said the hardest part of making the derricks was the design of a method that would ensure every derrick for the 59 competing teams is uniform so that no one team has an advantage.

To do that he created equipment to ensure all the screw holes to the three different assembly pieces were exactly in the same position.

It was a one-of-a-kind challenge requiring painstaking precision.

“They were happy to let me do it, because I had the time and I did it for free,” said a modest Olean, who estimated he spent about 40 hours cutting all 177 pieces.

The WRTC2014 runs from Wednesday through Monday at 58 sites in Massachusetts and one in Hollis, N.H.

In all, 59 two-man teams will use similar equipment to see how many ham radio operators in countries all over the world they can contact and document.

It’s an extremely exacting sport, Olean said, with each team having to precisely document each and every contact entry, each using a highly complex system of codes and ham radio shorthand to indicate each made contact, which can be voice or Morse Code.

“They’ll have judges looking over their shoulder and computers analyzing their entries. Any mistake could cost them,” Olean noted.

All 118 contestants have won qualifying competitions to allow them to participate in this week’s Radio Olympics, which are held every four years all over the globe. The last one was in Russia in 2010.

Most of the teams are from the United States, Russia and Europe, but there are also some from Australia, Africa and the Baltic States.

In the competition radio power is limited to 100 watts.

Meanwhile, Olean, who is not, himself, competing, is fascinated by low-wattage and low-frequency radio communication.

“There’s something for everyone in amateur radio,” he said last month inside his workshop. “Some guys just like to talk to different people on the radio. And others are, like me, interested in these highly technical aspects of low watt and low frequency operation.”

He compared it to NASCAR, in that there are folks that just want to be drivers, and others who want to delve into how best to tweak a carburetor or intake valve.

Ham radio operators have proved invaluable in their service during times of disaster like the Boston Marathon Bombing, 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. As landlines and cellphones struggle to make contact in times of crisis, ham radio operators have come through time and time again.

“There’s a wide range of activity ham radio operators can have,” he said. “It’s like 50 to 100 different hobbies rolled into one. Some have no technical training, just like to talk. Other it’s for the technical aspect, or something specific, like microvaves, transistors, low power or low frequency.

Olean sold his antenna business about a year ago, but continues his passion for low-frequency operation.

“I talked to a guy in Buglaria recently who was running 1 watt,” he said. “I heard him fine. We worked to see how weak the system could get and still make contact.”

His main radio hut is in thick woods about a third of a mile from his house, where his highest antenna of about 140 feet is located.

He said sometimes on a clear 4^th of July he’ll strap on a safety harness and climb halfway up.

“You can see the fireworks from the Esplanade,” he said.  “It’s pretty cool.”