Techtonic with Mark Hurst is a weekly radio show from WFMU about technology, how it's affecting us, and what we can do about it.

Amateur radio is a superpower: Thomas Witherspoon

Dec 1, 2025

Amateur radio enthusiast Thomas Witherspoon (K4SWL) tells the story of surviving Hurricane Helene in September 2024 when all power and phone access went down. His amateur radio skills were like a “superpower” – though just as important was his community with neighbors.

Show Notes

• QRPer.com, Thomas Witherspoon’s website

• Elecraft KH1 handheld radio

• Summits on the Air and Parks on the Air

• Videos by Thomas on Google’s YouTube (watch in the Duck Duck Go browser or with a privacy plug-in to strip out Google surveillance)

• Aftermath (Sep 28, 2024), Thomas’s post just after Hurricane Helene blew through his area in northwest North Carolina

• Hurricane Helene: One Year Later (Sep 27, 2025), Thomas’s reflection about his experiences

• ARRL, the national association for amateur radio

• See also: Wikipedia, Effects of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. Also this news video (Oct 1, 2024) about Dan Gitro, an amateur radio operator who helped coordinate communications from the Mount Mitchell repeater.

Thanks to Todd Mazierski for producing the outtro segment. This is a collage featuring amateur radio transmissions Todd recorded on October 29, 2025, a day after Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica. As Todd describes it, “Operators were sharing news, checking in on friends and family, making phone calls, and giving first-hand accounts of the devastation.”
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Dec 1, 2025