The Man Behind the Voice of Amateur Radio in Clark County

Part 1 of a 2-Part Series on Local Radio

Read Part 2 in our February 2022 issue!

Don Mitchell remembers being a young student at the Oregon School for the Blind in Salem when a classmate introduced him to a piece of technology he had never seen before. It was a small, unassuming electronic device, but it forever transformed how Mitchell communicated with and saw the world. He explored this new item with a passionate thrill and the last bit of functioning eyesight he had left.

Mitchell will never forget the day he saw his first radio.

Now 72, and completely blind, radio is one of the things that brings him the most joy. “It’s magic to me. It’s just magic. I really get excited about it,” he says.

His enthusiasm for amateur radio is infectious, and if you stop and think about it, it’s easy to see why.

For some, the idea of “entertainment” conjures up the taste of popcorn while in an IMAX theater. For others, it’s the feel of the latex headphone pads that slide over your ears as you dive into the latest true crime podcast. But, it’s easy to forget that none of those could have existed without the invention of the radio.

In the late 1800s, the first wireless radio was presented by Nikolai Tesla. By now, it should have fallen out of fashion for such an old piece of technology. Instead, the opposite has happened. It remains the most utilized piece of entertainment in the United States. It reaches more people monthly than the use of television, tablets, PCs, and smartphones.

But for Mitchell, all those decades ago with his classmate’s radio in hand, it was just fun. He had a blast playing with it, turning the dials and listening to the different stations. That’s when he turned the radio around and looked at the back.

“There were little holes for the hot air to come out, and I could see glowing lights in there. And when I turned the station, there was this thing that moved, and I thought, ‘Wow, that is so cool. I wonder what that does. I wonder how that works.’ It was just that little event in my life that fueled my love of radio.” In his 30s, Mitchell went on to get his general class radio license, but the mystery of the radio never went away.

Read the rest of this article in the full digital issue below.