Two watts, a backyard and a signal to Antarctica
In just two minutes, using a radio in his Twin Cities backyard, Jonathan Stacke once contacted the German weather station team in Antarctica.
Closer to home, Stacke contacts job candidates as a recruiter for the Department of Public Safety (DPS). His duties include talking with those candidates about DPS and its mission. That talkative nature carries over into his life off the clock, where he chats on the air as a licensed ham radio operator.
Stacke served in the military for 22 years and was fascinated by the high-frequency (HF) radio and satellite communications used by the Minnesota Army National Guard.
After retiring from the Guard, he saw a YouTube video about ham radio and thought “that looks pretty cool.” He signed up for classes and has been on the air most weekends ever since.
His very first contact was with someone in England. “At that moment,” he said, “I realized I was able to reach somebody across an ocean from my home, without a smartphone or computer.”
Depending on the setup he uses, Stacke can contact people in the Upper Midwest, across the continental United States or overseas. He has connected with radio operators in England, central Mexico and that weather station team in Antarctica.
The work of DPS involves communication and emergency preparedness, and this hobby gives Stacke firsthand appreciation for communication that will work even if the infrastructure most of us take for granted goes down.
Cell phone service can drop and internet connections can be interrupted, but HF radio will always work. “As long as you have a piece of wire, a transistor and a battery, you can reach people all over the world,” he said.
For Stacke, ham radio is a never-ending experiment of technology and just how far a signal can travel.
It’s one of those hobbies that keeps on re-inventing itself and growing. “You’ll never peak and have nothing more to try,” Stacke said. There’s always something new — a challenge or a contest to join, a new radio to try, a different kind of antenna to build.
And there will always be someone to connect with, like a weather team in Antarctica.
Watch Jonathan Stacke reach the Eastern Seaboard from Fort Snelling State Park
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