‘I would find it very difficult to function if I didn’t have a radio set.’

Commanding a view from a hilltop in Valley Center, Stan Rohrer lives with his wife, Barbara, and two teen-age daughters at 1,200 feet--a good elevation for a radio antenna. A native of Wakarusa, Ind., Rohrer became interested in amateur radio in high school, and it has made his life easier ever since, he said. It also led him to the avocado groves he now manages for a living. A high school physics teacher for 15 years, Rohrer was visiting Mexico in his late 30s when he met an Orange County elementary school teacher. He courted her by radio from Indiana, married her and moved to Southern California, where his father-in-law had eyed the rolling hills of San Diego’s North County as a site for orchards. Now a 57-year-old avocado grower and president of the Palomar Amateur Radio Club, Rohrer sees tomorrow’s potential radio operators--today’s youth--siphoned off by computers. But he is optimistic. A new station atop Palomar Mountain may attract teen - age computer buffs with the opportunity to pass information and programs via radio to the East Coast--for free. Times staff writer Nancy Reed interviewed Rohrer, and Dave Gatley photographed him.

It is a hobby, but amateur radio has changed my whole life.

I was pretty much of a loner. It is a beautiful way to socialize. It was a way for me to get out and meet people that I normally would not be able to in my restrictive environment. It was a little town. And no matter where I went, even when I was in the service, all I had to do is get on the radio. Like when I was at Scott Air Force Base, where I got on the radio, and before I got off, I had two invitations to supper.

When I got started, the lure was to be able to talk to people in Germany, Italy, South America and the South Pacific. I could understand everybody, because they all talked English.

It sort of opens up things in places you don’t really expect it. It is a worldwide thing. If you are an amateur radio operator, there is a kinship there.

I wouldn’t have gotten married. In the summertime I traveled all over Mexico, and I would have my amateur radio with me and a license in Mexico. I met my wife down there.

I started writing her a letter every day, and I used the amateur radio to talk to her through a radio station about a half mile from where she lived.

I tell my girls, if you want to pick up a guy, get an amateur radio license. Because if you are going to pick up somebody, don’t pick them up in a bar. For instance, when we were in Yucatan and we were just walking around having a good time and we saw this amateur radio antenna. My wife asks a woman selling purses who owns it. She didn’t know, but she said her sons and husband were radio operators. Before we knew it, my daughters had a date for New Year’s.

Technical interest and the ability to talk with people all over the world are two main reasons for the hobby, but the FCC says all these frequencies you have are worth $24 billion. We justify the use in terms of public service.

Like when the big earthquake happened in Mexico City, for a while amateur radio was the only contact out of there. Members of our club handled a large amount of that traffic.

We have a field day in the summertime where we set up emergency stations all around this water tank here and create our own power with generators, and talk with people all over the United States and the world. If we can do that every year, then we feel when the big earthquake comes we can communicate.

I would find it very difficult to function if I didn’t have a radio set. I know that I have friends that will help with a drop of a hat.

In a strange place, you can get directions and meet friends. When I came out here to California, as soon as I was here a couple years and could get my amateur radio going, immediately I had friends all over San Diego to Fallbrook and Oceanside, and down to the Tijuana border.

They are family. You hear people helping each other out on the air--with jobs, helping with antennas, or problems with their radio. I am confident when my wife goes out at night because she has a radio. One of the girls in the club rolled her car over in Poway, and here she is hanging upside down in her seat belt. She grabs her microphone, gives a call up to the repeater on Palomar Mountain, and within four minutes there is a radio operator at the scene to help her. Another came by to see that she got to work.