He Takes Kids on the Ride of Their Lives

Buzzes, clicks and clatters fill Classroom 26 at Los Feliz Elementary School in Hollywood, where teacher John Abbott’s lesson in ham radio operation is about to begin.

The seven students, ages 9 through 11, take their seats at desks bearing an oscilloscope, transceiver and other knob-laden electronic equipment as well as the key used to transmit Morse code. A computer sits nearby; stretching almost to the ceiling is an antenna.

Abbott tells his charges to turn to the last lesson in the paperback textbook he wrote two years ago, “Riding the Air Waves With Alpha and Zulu.”

“Does anyone remember what a coaxial cable is?” he asks them.

He translates answers into kid-friendly language. “What is grounding? What happens when you get grounded at home? Nothing happens. It’s the same with electrons--they have to go into the ground and not run around, to make sure they don’t hurt anybody.”

Next up, a quiz on Morse code. Abbott taps out sounds as the youngsters listen and call out the corresponding letters of the phonetic alphabet. “Tango-Oscar-Delta-Alpha-Yankee”-- today.

Then, the best part, according to the kids--going on the air to contact who-knows-who.

Microphone in hand, Abbott says, “CQ, CQ” (seek you) and gives his call letters. With a twirl of a dial, he brings in a grandfather named Bill in Athens, Tex. The students clamor to talk, spelling out their names phonetically and grinning at Bill’s friendly responses. They run to the wall map, locate Athens, and mark the spot with a pin.

Abbott, 61, has been teaching the ham radio class, a requirement for gifted students at the school, since January, 1990. Then a communications engineer for the Los Angeles City Department of Water and Power, he joined a DWP program in which engineers did volunteer work with students one day a week, choosing Los Feliz Elementary at the suggestion of his wife, Teri, who teaches the third and fourth grades there.

He retired in 1992 and now holds classes twice a week. “My wife told me the kids needed something like this as an outlet,” says Abbott, a ham radio devotee since he was 13. “Most of the kids live in little apartments. This lets them know there’s another side of life out there.”

Abbott’s students have spoken with people as far away as New Zealand, though because of time differences most of their foreign communication comes from Mexico, Central and South America and Japan. They communicated with the space shuttle in 1993 and received printouts from NASA’s Mas observation satellite observing Mars. The computer allows discourse throughout the world, similar to an on-line service--but free, because it uses radio waves rather than the telephone.

Abbott’s contributions would cost the Los Angeles Unified School District about $30,000 a year if he were paid, school principal Betty Castaneda estimates. “That’s not even to mention the equipment he’s donated--about $5,000 worth,” she says. “There are maybe four or five other schools in LAUSD that have a ham radio class, but they don’t have a real engineer to teach them, and they’re not as diversified.

“The most important thing John does is provide a role model,” she says. “He’s comfortable around the technology, so the kids are, too. Also, more than half the kids do not have fathers--they come from a single-parent home--so he’s a father role model.”

As for the kids, “It’s fun,” says 10-year-old Gerardo Arturo Estrada. “You get to meet a lot of people and make friends.”

Adds Jennifer Jong, also 10: “You can use it to get a good job.”

Abbott sees another appeal, the one that hooked him as a teen-ager.

“Here you are in your little world and all of a sudden, you can get on the air and talk to anybody in the world,” he says. “It’s that feeling that you’re riding the airwaves. You’re bouncing around the world--your voice is going through space and time forever.”

*

* This occasional column tells the stories of the unsung heroes of Southern California, people of all ages and vocations and avocations, whose dedication as volunteers or on the job makes life better for the people they encounter. Reader suggestions are welcome and may be sent to Local Hero Editor, Life & Style, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053.