Every first Tuesday of the month, the airwaves in southern Summit County come alive: It’s roll call for amateur radio enthusiasts.
Residents in Weber Canyon above Oakley are joining their ranks — but less as a hobby and more for safety. In May, volunteers erected a two-way radio tower so residents have a reliable way to communicate during fire season.
Dayne Raff had the idea after watching a documentary about the 2018 Camp Fire, California’s deadliest ever, a few months prior.
The blaze destroyed cell phone infrastructure, and Raff realized what a disaster that would be for Weber Canyon. He lives in the canyon year round, with one way in, one way out and not much cell service.
“When you make that kind of an investment in this kind of lifestyle,” Raff told KPCW, “you want to know where your water's coming from. You want to know what the situation of really living here full time is going to entail, and part of that for me was communications.”
As luck would have it, his neighbor Alicia O’Meara had a half-century-old television tower sitting in her backyard. Her cabin’s previous owners, the Skaggs family, had it installed.
“When this came up, we're like: that is a perfect reason why we have this tower,” O’Meara said. “I can't think of a better reason to donate, and have [communications] access for all the community here.”
Raff sits on the board of Cool Springs Mutual Water Company, which owns land on Weber Canyon’s northern ridgeline about 9 miles from Oakley.
But before they could set up a tower there, Raff also needed a license from the Federal Communications Commission. He joined a Facebook group and soon found himself enmeshed in Utah’s amateur radio network.
“I went from pocket protector-avoider — nerd, not doing that — to full-fledged licensee in a month,” Raff laughed. “And then from there I was like, ‘Now what are we going to do from a hardware perspective?’ And two months later, we had a repeater working.”
The very same Facebook friends who showed Raff the ham radio ropes helped hoist the tower atop Cool Springs’ old water tank site. Now he says they’re friends for life.
The tower doesn’t broadcast like an FM or AM radio station. As a repeater, it allows individuals with two-way radios to talk amongst each other at a greater distance.
Resident Karl Lund said they are sharing their tower information with local authorities like the Summit County Sheriff’s Office.
“So we can hear and talk to people that are anywhere in our canyon, including up at Smith and Morehouse [Reservoir],” Lund, O’Meara’s husband, said. “We can also talk to people in Park City, and in Kamas, and in Summit Park, Ogden, Morgan. Any emergency is happening anywhere near here — we can access information if anyone's transmitting that information.”
And in a dry year like this one, that could be life-saving.
Connecting to the repeater
Raff estimates there are about 30 people who regularly participate in monthly roll calls, although it’s hard for him to know exactly how many. Some were existing Family Radio Service users in the Kamas Valley, although the repeater is part of the General Mobile Radio Service system.
That means anyone looking to connect to the repeater also needs a GMRS license from the FCC, which costs $35 and will last 10 years. Click here for more information on how to apply.
The roll call is on the first Tuesday of each month at 8 p.m.
Raff said to connect using Repeater Channel 19 or 462.650 +5 offset DCS tone 712n. He asked anyone with questions about connecting to contact him.
