Mike Mullin - Ashen Winter

“We ran it briefly last night. Is it wrecked?”

“I do not know. But an AN/PRC-70 will not operate without an antenna. This radio probably will not operate without an antenna, either. Where is the antenna?”

I had to ask three different prefects for directions, and even then wound up running halfway around the camp to find Dad.

“What’s wrong?” he said as I huffed up.

“The DWBs,” I replied. “They ripped us off. That transceiver is no good without an antenna.”

Dad sighed heavily. “That’s as much fun as a failed backflow preventer. Nothing to be done for it, I guess.”

“Couldn’t we make an antenna?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. What does Ben say about it?”

“He doesn’t know how. But I was thinking, there are what, twenty thousand people in this camp?”

“Almost thirty thousand.”

“Someone’s got to know something about radios.”

“Yeah. A ham radio operator. Or electrical engineer. I’ll organize the prefects to ask everyone.”

I spent the rest of the morning going from tent to tent, asking everyone I could find if they knew anything about radios. All over camp, other prefects were doing the same thing. When we were asked why we wanted a radio expert, we told folks we were trying to turn some old cell phones into radios. We had two cell phones we could surrender to Black Lake if they got wind of the project. They were worthless-none of the cell transmission towers had worked since the first day of the eruption more than ten months ago.

Early in the afternoon, a prefect found me. “The Dean wants you. We found a ham radio guy.”

When I got back to the tent, Dad was standing outside with Jones, talking to an older guy with a salt-and-pepper beard peeking from under his scarves. He stood out because his beard was neatly trimmed-most guys let them run wild since personal grooming was a lot more challenging without safety razors, hot water, or electricity. Not that I had to worry about it. I grew just enough wispy facial hair to look stupid, but not enough to bother shaving.

“Oh hey, Alex,” Dad said. “This is Ken Bandy.”

We shook hands as Dad continued, “Alex doesn’t have a formal role in the prefects yet, so I’ll assign him to help you.” That “yet” was interesting. Not that I wanted a role. I wanted to get out of here already.

“Help me what?” Ken asked.

“I’ll show you. But first I want it understood that you can’t reveal what’s inside this tent to anyone, not even your wife.”

“Got it. But how long are you going to need me for?”

“I don’t know. A few days.”

“I can’t leave Carol alone that long.”

“Jones,” Dad said. “Organize a three-person, twenty-four-hour guard detail for Mr. Bandy’s wife until he’s done here.”

“Roger,” she replied and left.

Dad ushered Ken and me into the tent.

“Is that? It is!” Ken knelt by the transceiver. “A Yaesu. Nice model, too. Probably would have set you back $800 before the eruption. I can’t imagine what it’d cost now. What kind of antenna do you have?”

“We don’t,” I replied.

“Nice boat anchor you’ve got, then.”

“Couldn’t we build an antenna?”

“You have an antenna tuner?”

“Um, no.”

“You don’t want much, do you?”

“Can you do it?”

Ken rubbed his fingers together. “Maybe. What frequency do you want to transmit on?”

I shrugged. “You tell me.”

“Well, how far do you want to transmit?”

“Can we reach Washington?”

“With a good antenna, sure, no problem. Twenty meters would probably work best. I might be able to make a dipole antenna, but without a tuner. . I don’t know.”

“What do you need?”

Ken was silent for a moment. “Forty or fifty feet of copper wire, any gauge will do. Co-ax cable. Fifty feet should do. Two six-foot copper grounding rods. Enough posts to suspend the whole antenna thirty feet off the ground.”

I looked at Dad. “Where are we going to get all that stuff? And how are we going to put an antenna that high up without the guards noticing?”

He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know.”

Getting the supplies turned out to be much easier than I’d anticipated. A lot of the refugees had been rounded up on the road while they tried to flee the disaster zone. They’d fashioned crude tents with whatever came to hand, and FEMA had allowed them to keep their improvised tents when they’d entered the camp. For some of them, the best raw materials available had been items ripped out of their homes. Wire torn out of walls-both electrical and co-ax-served as crude cordage for guy lines. Copper pipes substituted for tent poles. The prefects fanned out across the camp again, looking for the materials we needed and arranging replacements or tent upgrades for refugees who allowed us to take parts from their shelters.

While I searched for materials, I also kept an eye out for unused canvas. Unfortunately, tent materials were at a premium-all the canvas in camp appeared to be in use. I wasn’t sure how I could manage to steal an occupied tent. Maybe Ben would have an idea.

We didn’t find a forty-foot length of wire, of course. We had to splice it together from dozens of scraps, joining each chunk with its neighbor with the tightest twist we could manage. One of the prefects found a family using chunks of a tailor’s cloth measuring tape as improvised belts-an invaluable find since Ken wanted the wire measured precisely. He did a bunch of calculations in the snow outside, muttering something about 468 megahertz to himself. When he finished, he told us to make each of the two legs of the antenna sixteen feet, ten inches long. With all the splices, Ken said he’d be shocked if it worked. The co-ax cable was even harder to splice than the copper without connectors or tape.

We used six-foot lengths of copper pipe as grounds, driving them into the earth by pounding on them with heavy rocks. The ends of the soft copper pipes belled out, and we couldn’t get them driven more than a few feet into the frozen ground. It was as good as the rest of the hap-hazard setup, I guessed.

Raising a thirty-four-foot antenna thirty feet off the ground proved to be impossible. We simply didn’t have any poles long enough. Plus, an antenna that tall would be visible from the guard shack-a risk we couldn’t take. Instead we strung the antenna across the tops of the tallest tents. Ken wanted it thirty feet high-he got about eight.

By evening, we were ready to try it. Ken, Ben, and I crowded into the tent while Dad and some prefects kept watch outside. Ken slowly turned the dial on the transceiver, listening to static and squeals with the silent intensity of a priest at prayer.

He’d been at it fifteen or twenty minutes when something occurred to me. “Why don’t you call out? Maybe someone’s listening but not transmitting.”

“Transmitting takes more than twenty times the juice as listening. We’ve only got the two batteries, right? Which do you want? Four hours of transmitting, or eighty of listening?”

“Oh.” That made sense.

More than an hour passed before Ken gave up scanning. “I really can’t tell if this is working without an antenna tuner or an SWR meter. Maybe the antenna is too long. Go trim an inch off each side. That’ll change its harmonics, maybe even help.”

Cutting the copper wire without proper tools was a pain. I had to get the end of the antenna down off a tent, lay the wire against a brick, score it with a knife, and then bend it back and forth until it broke. Ben came along to help, holding the shake light for me. Still, it seemed like it took a long time.