The Weyburn Amateur Radio Club has a new licence examiner, and is hoping to bolster numbers by holding a course in ham radio through Southeast Regional College.

The small club of ham radio enthusiasts meets informally, holds activities and take part in competition with other enthusiasts from across the country. The club has been losing members in recent years as people move away - current members are looking to rekindle interest in the hobby.

"If we could get more people involved we would be able to do more special events, like a field day or demonstration," said club member Rawn Oliver, noting members of the club are serving as a backup for Weyburn's Emergency Measures Organization command centre, monitoring the rollover to the year 2000 on Friday, Dec. 31.

Part of the reason for the decline in interest is the rise in popularity in the Internet, said Oliver, as its ease of operation with graphics and crisp sound sometimes overshadows the crackling voices one hears on a ham radio set.

"For me, it's an electronic hobby. Some people collect hockey cards or fly remote control planes, while this is dealing with electronics, and being able to find and talk to people who are new, all over the world," said Oliver, adding the hobby's attraction for him is the challenge of scanning the wide bands of frequencies to find contacts. To date, Oliver has talked to people in such countries as Spain, England, Slovenia, Japan, Austria, France, Norway, Northern Ireland, Italy, Venezuela, Iceland, Germany and Denmark, among others.

When the former designated examiner for radio licences, Bj Madsen, moved away when he retired from teaching, the position with Industry Canada came open and Oliver has stepped in to carry on.

There are four levels of amateur radio licences Oliver can test for, from the basic level up to advanced. The basic level allows a ham operator to have communications for most frequencies in the UHF and VHF levels above 30 megahertz; the second level is the five-word-per-minute endorsement, which allows the operator to go on three additional band widths; third, the 12-word-per-minute endorsement, which gives the operator full HF (High Frequency) privileges.

The highest licence is the advanced level, with which you can build your own equipment, sponsor your own club station, operate and maintain a repeater or remote station, and increase your transmitter's output to one kilowatt.

There is no age requirement for any of the licence levels, and a radio operator doesn't have to know Morse code to get their basic licence. The test, which Oliver administers, is comprised of 100 multiple choice questions, on which the writer needs 60 per cent to pass.

The Weyburn club is planning to hold a 30-hour course in ham radio operation through Southeast Regional College, which would enable people to gain the basic information they would need to write the basic licence exam.

The club is looking at a February start date, with evening classes one night a week to wrap up by Easter time. If anyone is interested in taking such a course, they are asked to call Bonnie Adacsi-Cooke at the regional college's Weyburn campus.

People can also study for the exam on their own, using a study guide supplied by ham radio's national organization, Radio Amateurs of Canada. The book can be ordered at the local book store or through the organization's web site found at www.rac.ca. The organization also has used equipment and technical information updates available on the site.