I remember when my brother and I got a set of walkie-talkies. We must have been four and five, I suppose; we had not yet started school. We were taught to say “over” after each transmission. That would have been in, oh, 1969. I think that is the last time I have, with a straight face, said “over.”

A week or two back, when the Middle Snowstorm had us all battened down, I had the 2-meter ham radio hooked up to a 12-volt battery on the floor under my table. Knox County Emergency Management and local radio operators in this and surrounding counties were taking the opportunity to test, and chat, and report in to each other and to the National Weather Service, and to make sure everybody’s radio equipment was up and running in case it was needed for emergency communications.

We may never see another “Ice Storm of ’98” around here. Then again, we might. The radio operators compared notes through the day, reported on the road closure in Waldoboro seemingly hundreds of times, and made sure everything was go for an emergency. I had 54 mph winds at my house, and that was news, but we had no power outage so the whole thing was just an exercise.

The phone company’s infrastructure on Matinicus is actually very stable, but things do happen. Generally, they do not happen here, but a fault or a strange technology glitch or some dope severing a wire with an excavator in any one of a multitude of other places—Bass Harbor, Swan’s Island, another phone company’s cable to Bangor—can cause phone troubles on Matinicus. Back last November, on Election Day, the phones were out for a few hours during the late afternoon due to a problem somewhere else, and we got all excited about the idea that we might have to use the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service to call in election results to the Bangor Daily News. Alas, the phones came back in time to fax the results.

Radio is fun. Some people think so, anyway. When I was little, I remember my grandfather in South Thomaston, Fred Batty, after supper in his recliner, smoking unfiltered Camels and talking on the CB to his neighbor Carl Ilvonen, who was maybe a quarter of a mile up the road. Carl still lives there, by the way (Fred died in 1994).

Fred started out with his Citizen’s Band call sign, because back then, you needed one: he was “KKB 2348.” Carl, if I remember right, was “KQB” something-or-other. Strange, the things you remember from childhood. Fred and Carl were lobster fishermen, and like everybody had radios aboard their boats, but this evening chat from the house was just for fun. They could almost have stood outside in the Waterman Beach Road and shouted at each other.

A little later in the 1970s, when CB became the hugely popular fad hobby it was for a while, my neighbors were all in. I don’t mean the old lobstermen, either. I lived on a street where, through the warmer months, people sat out on their steps and drank beer with the neighbors in the evening, and my next-door neighbor Tommy Hansen and his family all got into Citizen’s Band.

They all had their handles, Teddybear and Big Red, that sort of thing; they knew all the jargon and talked in cutesy expressions stolen from movies and country songs, and then there were the police 10-codes—the more obscure, the better.

Housewives and guys who worked for the city were all about saying “Breaker, breaker, one-nine….” sometimes affecting just the very slightest pseudo-Southern twang. Everybody had a good laugh when the “Convoy” song by C.W. McCall played on the AM radio, which in 1975 was pretty darned frequently. “Eleven long-haired Friends a’ Jesus in a chartreuse microbus.” The informal radio club on the steps learned all the trucker and police jargon. Any of their friends who might have been actual truck drivers or cops just rolled their eyes at the nonsense that their good buddies transmitted. It was all in fun.

They did say “over,” a word we never hear a local fishermen utter on the VHF. Assuming the two parties can hear each other adequately, saying “over” in the radio around here either means that you have just rented a boat for the first time and you have no VHF experience, or you are a small child with a brand-new set of walkie-talkies and you foolishly read the directions. You sure as heck aren’t a Matinicus lobsterman.

When I moved to Matinicus in 1987, CB had been out of favor for a few years, and cell phones had not yet become common and practical. VHF ruled the air. My friend up the road (eventually my husband) had his VHF turned up in the kitchen all the time, listening for ships, because he worked with the local pilot boat to put Penobscot Bay and River Pilots aboard ships (and take them off, when outbound, of course). That radio, licensed to WXA 2165 (a number our kids grew up hearing in the background all the time) brought all sorts of entertainment into our home.

I remember pilot boat captain Albert Bunker talking to the ships, who may have come from anywhere in the world, with a captain who may have had a limited grasp of schoolbook English not to mention local lingo. Albert would tend to answer in the affirmative with a hearty, happy “Okey-dokey, ten-four, finest kind, roger-dodger!” I had this image in my mind of a Greek master and mate somewhere on a rusty freighter’s bridge looking through an English-Greek phrasebook trying to find “Okey-dokey, ten-four, finest kind, roger-dodger.”

The Camden Marine Operator was on the air, connecting guys on boats with people on telephones who sometimes forgot that the entire coast of Maine was listening to their “private” conversation. We still smile when we recall a transmission from an older lady on Matinicus who called the captain of the Maine Seacoast Mission vessel Sunbeam in Matinicus harbor through the Marine Operator, insisting he wake up the on-board minister and bring him to the radio, so she could ask him whether they were serving pie.

I also recall two lobstermen based in some nearby community, a father and son, who chatted on the radio each day. Every morning, we’d hear “Shogun, you on there, Dad?” One day in thick fog, it was, “Shogun, you on there, Dad?” The older fellow on the F/V Shogun answered. The younger man came back with, “Yeah, Shogun—when you saw me a while back—whereabouts was I?”

Evidently, only one of them had radar. Those guys are still around, and I sincerely hope they do not mind my retelling of this little dialogue. Having a radio is a good thing.

Matinicus Island is no longer used as a pilot station, and the need to monitor VHF radio traffic all the time is no longer a part of my life, but the parents and spouses of fishermen still do it. It isn’t just chat, it’s about safety. The VHF in the post office has been used more than once to get messages about injured people coming to the harbor by boat to the local EMS or to islanders who can call the air service and arrange fast transport to Rockland. The VHF in the power house is used to talk to the oil boat (the tanker Captain Ray O’Neal) delivering a load of diesel fuel to the island. The VHF on my desk, sitting beside the 2-meter radio, would allow me to relay an emergency message from a local boat (or fisherman’s kitchen or, like last week in the snow, the hand-held VHF in the snowplow) to the mainland in the event of telephone failure. I’m hoping that’ll never happen.

That’s how I first got involved with ham radio. As the local emergency management person with hopefully no emergencies to manage, ham radio looked like a useful tool to add to the island’s “remote back-country community” kit. Nobody else was doing it; the last ham operator on this island was Page Burr, who passed away (or went “silent key”) in 1998. Older local hams may remember Page. In fact, it was one of Page Burr’s ham antenna towers, lugged up here and attached to my house, which became the first Internet receiving station for Matinicus around 15 years ago, when Midcoast Internet Solutions tried an experiment. That was back when all telephone calls off Matinicus were at long distance rates. I sure wish I’d been able to see into the future and realize that I’d eventually take an interest in amateur radio back when Page was alive; he’d have made the finest kind of “Elmer.” That’s a radio mentor.

A lot of amateur radio geeks get involved in public safety, whether it’s backing up remote Search and Rescue efforts, passing emergency messages through a hurricane, watching for tornadoes and other dangerous weather and reporting in to the NWS, or volunteering with safety teams at events like the Bicycle Coalition of Maine’s annual Lobster Ride and the Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race. Last weekend, I passed the exam to upgrade my ham radio license to the next level. Time to put up yet another antenna in this busy yard. I’m glad I do not live in a subdivision with restrictive rules about such things!

Just to add to the radio chatter in the house, we also often have an aviation radio turned on, listening to the guys from Penobscot Island Air bring the mail and all the other good stuff. That’s a receive-only setup; one doesn’t pester pilots. While I was learning to fly, I realized that as much as I felt a raw beginner in all things aviation-related, at least I wasn’t nervous about talking on the radio. Air Traffic Control in Bangor didn’t scare me much.

What did, and does, scare me is pilots who are in the air but not on the air. Surprisingly, it is not required that a small private plane in uncontrolled airspace even have a two-way radio. During my first solo, in Belfast a couple of years ago, there was another plane in the pattern talking to nobody. I announced, “Belfast traffic, Cessna 18173, left downwind for landing runway three-three, Belfast.” He said nothing. That taught me a lesson or two!

I think of Tommy Hansen and his funny 1970s CD slang. He said, “10-4, good buddy!” These days I might, once in a great while, drop into the nerdy ham slang and sign off with “73.” I might slip up, in an airplane out of Knox County, and start with “Belfast Traffic…” But I generally refuse to say “over.”

More Eva Murray

At what risk?
Using it twice

Christmas on Matinicus, back a ways and these days
Remember civilian heroes – A Christmas tree, two guys named Coleman, and a lot of other people
Eva Murray: Haul away, haul away, boys...
Politics, the middle ground, and a few probably unwelcome observations (Nov. 5, 2016)
Islander (Oct. 20, 2016)
• Eva Murray: Brier, Muck and Igiugig (Sept. 28, 2016)

• Doctor Lightning (June 27, 2016)
• Search and Rescue (May 27, 2016)
• It's about the water (May 11, 2016)
• Eva Murray: In defiance of mud season - tips for the inspired homeowner 
• Plesiosynchronicity, and a snowy day
• A day of planning and practicing in preparation for major storms (posted March 10, 2016)
• Time to take down the (island) Christmas tree (posted March 3, 2016)
• Snow Day on Matinicus (posted Feb. 14, 2016)
•Going to Rockland for pie (and beer and art glass and ukuleles...) (posted Feb. 3, 2016)
•Eva Murray: Pencil to paper (posted Jan. 21, 2016)
• A new year, a new winter (posted Dec. 31, 2015)
• ‘A tiny, happy place’ (posted Dec. 14, 2015)
• Metal artist Blair Clement brings wave-washed junk to life (posted Sept. 20, 2015)
•Maine veterans and a most sentimental biker (posted June 1, 2015)
•Wild Island Child (posted April 8, 2015)
• Last holdouts of offshore outpost finally accept reality (posted April 1, 2015)
•Truck on boat (posted March 16, 2015)
•Public works (posted Feb. 25, 2015)
• A constant struggle (posted Feb. 14, 2015)
• Pie Hero, Pie Villain (posted Jan. 29, 2015)
• Safely out to sea (posted Jan. 27, 2015)
• Je suis (posted Jan. 13, 2015)
• Making merry on Matinicus, with only a few (posted Dec. 25, 2014)
• The smallest emergency medical service around (posted Sept. 29, 2014)
• Islanders host 'Man Overboard!' discussion, rescue demonstrations (posted Sept. 8, 2014)
• Logistics (posted July 31, 2014)
• Black Hawks over Criehaven (posted July 16, 2014)
• On a sunny Saturday, when the steel band came to Matinicus (posted June 6, 2014)
• The last day of winter (posted April 16, 2014)
• Puppies, basketball champs not injured by explosive five-bulldozer wreck, dump fire, and zoning board (posted March 13, 2014)
• In a good old hardware store (in memory of Everett Crabtree) (posted Feb. 28, 2014)
• What is it like to be one of Maine's Search and Rescue volunteers? (posted Feb. 9, 2014)
• Arts and hobbies (posted Jan. 31, 2014)
• Santa Claus and the yard sales - why I own more monkey wrenches than you do (posted Jan. 15, 2014)
• Quiet on this last day of the year (Dec. 31, 2013)
• A one-room school Christmas (posted Dec. 21, 2013)
• Here's wishing us all a little rebellion in this happy season (posted Dec. 12, 2013)
• Roadside assistance (posted Nov. 27, 2013)
• On the many kinds of emergency responders (posted Nov. 18, 2013)
• (In defense of...) Breakfast for supper (posted Oct. 22, 2013)
• Fish Factory (posted Sept. 9, 2013)
• 350 dot Rockland... and many ruminations on small efforts (posted Aug. 30, 2013)
• Trains and planes and heroes (posted July 15, 2013)
• Joining the community of artists (posted July 4, 2013)
• Worth every penny (posted July 27, 2013)
• It's about showing up. Some thoughts on EMS Week (posted May 27, 2013)
• Ethanol, gasoline, and public safety (posted April 17, 2013)
• A system that makes it hard on people who want to do the right thing (part 2) (posted March 29, 2013)
• A system that makes it hard on people who want to do the right thing (part 1) (posted March 21, 2013)
• 'It's important' (posted Jan. 18, 2013)
• Tree crew (posted Dec. 28, 2012)
• Light the candles (posted Dec. 13, 2012)
• Firewood (posted Dec. 2, 2012)
• Missing man formation (posted Oct. 18, 2012)
• In the middle of the bay (posted Oct. 3, 2012)