By Dave Jensen, W7DGJ

Recently I read that 2023 was the 100^th anniversary of the Marshall and Loretta Ensor amateur radio station in Olathe, Kansas. If you are not familiar with that pair of radio operators, it was this brother and sister who built one of the USA's most powerful early amateur stations back in 1923. There has been quite a lot of radio history out of the Olathe area due to the Ensors -- so much so that their farmhouse and antennas have been incorporated into a museum celebrating the duo and their exploits. While the museum is owned by the City of Olathe, multiple radio clubs in the area have have been showing visitors around this museum for years and operating events from that location (see photo below).

Marshall (W9BSP) was quite the ham . . . he was a high school teacher, but he also taught as many as 10,000 others how to use morse code as well as electronics/radio theory through his broadcasts (until WWII when all amateur traffic was shut down). What got me thinking about this issue’s title, however, was reading about his sister, Loretta (W9UA), who often falls to the side of the discussion when the Ensors come up. That's a shame, because Loretta was a dynamo. She is recognized today as the first female to transmit her voice across the Pacific ocean from the USA, and as one of the founders of the Young Ladies Relay League . While Loretta may not have had the same interest in building and tearing apart radio equipment as did her brother, she certainly became known as a skilled operator and went on to take a very active role across the amateur radio services.

In this issue of Trials and Errors, we’ll celebrate the 100^th anniversary of Loretta’s licensure as 9UA (and later W9UA) by giving you examples of today's women operators who are succeeding in amateur radio. Thank you to the Olathe Reporter for the photo of the museum, and to one of my favorite books, The World of Ham Radio 1901-1950 (Richard Bartlett, author) for the picture of Loretta.

Well-Known YLs

Loretta Ensor was an early example of a woman who took to radio from the moment it came into her life. Most of us realize that there are too few females on the air even today, so Loretta must have been a great catch for a QSO back in the 1920's.

When I think of the YL's of today, people like Ria Jairam (N2RJ), author of a new Technician's License guide for the newcomer come to mind. Or, Michelle Thompson (W5NYV), one of the drivers of the ham radio training organization RATPAC and the CEO of the Open Research Institute (ORI). These women have taken an active role in the amateur radio services for years. But the question remains, how do we generate more Loretta's, more Ria's and Michelle's? Perhaps my brief interviews below will help to illustrate how female operators have come into the hobby more recently. 

I know we're all concerned about where future ham radio operators are going to come from. If we want more women in the service (and we do!) we need to focus on what attracts them. Some will be enthused about radio and gear, in the classic sense of ham radio, as people like Ria and Michelle could outdo me any day of the week with a soldering iron. But others could be (as you'll read below) more interested in making radio friends, and not how much fun it is to tear apart and rebuild an old tube transceiver. There are both types out there. Recruiting new amateurs for the future requires us to hit ALL the hot buttons.

Two of Today's Female Extra Class Operators

Suzie Easter (AG7SK) is an Extra Class ham operator located out of Glendale, Arizona. She came into the hobby as a result of her husband, Paul, who brought his radio interests with him when the pair moved to Arizona from the Midwest. Paul, now a Silent Key, got Suzie interested from what was just as much a social engagement as it was a technical interest.

"Paul was a Tech Class operator when we lived in Ohio, but at that time it wasn't for me. In 2019 he got interested in amateur radio again and encouraged me to take the test, as did his amateur radio “crew.” This group meets every Friday for lunch and I join them, along with my Mom and son, since Paul's passing in 2020," Suzie told me. It's clear that a major part of the hobby for her was not the theory or the technical aspects of ham radio. "I love the comraderie of radio . . .  Our lunch group is mostly guys and I love them all! Amateur radio operators are a tight knit group of friends and we’re like family."

Suzie (pictured at left) is one of those rare surprises that you get as a Volunteer Examiner. I've done some VE work and I will always encourage anyone getting their Technician Class license to "go for it" and take the General test while they are sitting in the license exam. It doesn't hurt to take a shot at the gold ring, right?

But AG7SK went all the way from Technician Class to Extra Class on the day that she went in for her first license. I asked her how she happened to pull that off.

"I am always interested in new things, so this was an opportunity to learn about so much more than just speaking on the radio . . . antennas, electronics, weather, radio waves. I started by basically working with three different apps on my phone and studying the multiple choice questions whenever I had a chance. I found that you just get better and better as you continue working with the multiple choice Q's . . . But along the way, I found certain topics that were really interesting to me and I dove in further on those with some research." Her comment about multiple choice reminded me that this subject came up in a previous Trials and Errors where I wrote about QRZ's practice exams, or apps like ANKI. Is it wrong to make the testing "passable" by those without a complete radio and electronics theory course behind them? I don't think so . . . not if you get quality people like Suzie, or my next operator Debby, involved with Amateur Radio!

Ham Radio "Snuck Up" on Her

Debby Dixon (K04ZMX) is another YL, located out of rural Kentucky. We spoke about the way that ham radio came about in her life, and in some ways it was a bit like Suzie. "My husband wanted to get rid of our landline phone, because it had turned into nothing but a spam phone call service at $60 a month. While I was in favor of dumping it as well, I told him that we'd have no way to call out in case of an emergency. We live in a rural area, and so his first thought was "Let's buy a couple of those ham radios."

Debby's husband grew up around amateur radio, as his Dad was a ham. "But when I saw what was necessary even for the starting license category, it looked really intimidating. In fact, it looked like what I would call a 'smart people's hobby.' I'm no spring chicken, so I grew up in a period when they wouldn't even let us girls join shop classes in school, something that I really wanted to do." Debby told me. "Regardless of my concerns, we got ahold of Stu Turner's license manual and started studying, combining that with the practice exams that are available on the Internet." [DGJ note: From free sites like the original QRZ.com, HamStudy.org, or the for-profit Hamtestonline.com].

This was only a year or two ago, and as Debby is now a licensed Extra Class operator, clearly the fit was a good one for her. Her experiences echo Suzie's (and mine as well) with regards to the joys of making these radio connections.

"After getting my Tech license, I started listening to the East Coast Reflector, and I remember jumping into my first QSO with an operator out of New York. It was so exciting for me to make that first "long distance" connection! When a few days later I had spoken to people in Washington, Pennsylvania, and even one connecting from his bicycle in Tennessee, I started studying for my General. All we have at our end are antennas in the attic, so I was limited on my DX abilities. But when I hit a special event station operating out of Spain, I was elated." Debby told me how frustrating it was at times to hear stations operating in band regions that she couldn't access with her newly acquired General License, which then became another incentive for her Extra Class push. This resuled in an October 2023 upgrade.

"I've never been exposed to the depths of information required to get a license like this in the past," Debby told me. "I can definitely see the value in learning all the theory in advance of the license, but there will always be people on the opposite spectrum. Some people will acquire so much information that they become experts in the field, while others need only the basic knowledge to be able to participate with confidence and enjoy the amateur radio services. I think we as hams need to realize this and attract both types into radio, as there's a value to this diversity."

Suzie (AG7SK) would agree with that statement, I'm sure. "We're a family in this radio hobby," Suzie emphasized. "We can learn so much from each other, and foster friendships that will last forever. We should all be spreading the word about this wonderful pastime through our social media, and by hosting events that involve churches or other organizations, and by reaching out to friends and family as well to tie into their interests."

While not every new operator will be a trendsetter like Loretta Ensor or her brother Marshall, I'm certain that there are a lot of others out there who would be positively affected by their involvement with amateur radio, just as these two YLs have been! Amateur Radio, in my life as well, has been nothing but a joy and a thrill for years now.

73 for now,

Dave

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