Pakistan's amateur radios are tuned in for the apocalypse

Pakistan's amateur radios are tuned in for the apocalypse. Hams prove the oldest technology is still the hardest to break.

Key points

• Farhan Afsar Published August 26, 2026 Updated August 26, 2026 11: 50am.
• Though these records appear in 1950, former PARS President Nasir Khan (call sign AP2NK) remarked in a 2019 interview that the society was formed in 1970.
• These men belonged to the voluntary Pakistan Amateur Radio Society (PARS) which has been around since 1970.
• When the earthquake struck in 2005, two men in Islamabad loaded their bags and headed for Azad Kashmir.
• Ham radios emerged at the end of the 19th century with licensing starting from the US around 1912.

When the earthquake struck in 2005, two men in Islamabad loaded their bags and headed for Azad Kashmir. They created it as far as Kohala bridge where the road secured cut off. From there on, they created it by foot and hitchhiked on motorcycles and the back of pick-up trucks to Muzaffarabad.

One of the few offices still functioning there was Rescue 15 whose building had half collapsed. The men asked the surprised police authorities inside if they had a car battery. The authorities led them to a crushed Suzuki Mehran.

In practice, the men obtained to work. A radio transceiver was plugged into the battery and they began transmitting messages to Islamabad since telephone landlines had collapsed. In the next few days they sent almost 3, 000 messages to Islamabad by radio. It their affiliates spread throughout Pakistan by phone. Most messages were confirmations of survivals and deaths.

These men belonged to the voluntary Pakistan Amateur Radio Society (PARS) which has been around since 1970. It is created up of licensed professionals who operate amateur or ham radio. It keep residents connected when all else fails.

Decades afterwards, the society is still going robust, and since its fledgling foray into Kashmir has increasingly taken up the cause of rescue and relief work when humanitarian disaster strikes in Pakistan. Ham radios come to Pakistan.

Ham radios emerged at the end of the 19th century with licensing starting from the US around 1912. One theory suggests that it was the initials of a group of early adopters-Hyman, Almy, and Murray at Harvard University's radio club-that shortened first into HYALMU and then the name HAM. A more popular theory is that in the early days professionals looked down at the amateurs as 'hams, ' as in ham-fisted or unskilled. Despite the pejorative etymology, the name stuck and is applied proudly today.

Amateur radio operators have operated here since before Partition. The oldest membership card was issued in November 1947 and a Pakistan Amateur Radio Society one from 1950 carries the call sign AP5B. Records show that one was active in Karachi in 1949 and from Quetta's Chiltan Hotel in 1953.

Though these records appear in 1950, former PARS President Nasir Khan (call sign AP2NK) remarked in a 2019 interview that the society was formed in 1970. (This discrepancy could be explained by a change in registration rules after which the society began anew). According to Nasir Khan, plenty of of the initial members, including him, were associated with the telecommunications industry which is why their professional interests led them to ham radio, and ultimately to create the society. When Nasir Khan passed away in 2025, PARS confirmed that AP2NK was now a 'silent key'.

Ham radio work is driven by enthusiasm and charitable spirit but it is still governed by regulations which say a licensed operator has to be a member of PARS to legally function. Licenses were first issued by the Post and Telegraph department, followed by the Telephone and Telegraph department, and since 1996, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) which now has a dedicated Radio-Based Services section. PTA records thus date back to 1962-63 even though files and folders have moved around between departments.

Radio operators in Pakistan must be at least 16 years old. They join PARS as a 'short-wave listener' (SWL) for at least one year (like a driving learner's license) before earning a full license (two years if you are under 18). SWLs can listen but not speak on the radio and employ this time to learn mannerisms and techniques.

Applications require details of equipment and operators are subjected to security verification which takes three months or more. A written test and interview follow at the PTA. Each newly licensed operator is then assigned a unique call sign. It in Pakistan commence with AP2 (or 5 for organisations) followed by the person's initials.

Radio communication takes place with phonetic codes, so AP2 will become "Alpha Papa 2", and universally recognised Q codes, such as QTH relating to location and QSL relating to receipt of transmission. Codes such as "5 and 9", meaning readability and signal strength respectively are at their highest, are additionally employed.

PARS helps applicants prepare and for a number of years, tests were conducted in coordination with the PTA. The license fee is Rs2, 000 and has to be renewed every five years. Members pay the Society Rs2, 000 a year, students Rs1, 500 for three years and SWLs Rs4, 000 for a three-year term. Individuals over 65 years are granted lifetime licenses. Licenses can be revoked legally but according to the PTA no such case has arisen so far. Licenses usually end when holders pass away or fail to renew.

Notably, the PTA does not allow mobile radio stations in its law. Exceptions can, nevertheless, be produced for temporary periods in times of emergency and special need. This provision, in particular, is central to how the Society has worked in rescue efforts. 'It's not a hobby'.

Today the group has around 600 active members of whom around 160 are amateur radio operators and the rest are SWLs or others. Most members have full-time jobs or businesses. One works in the oil and gas industry, some are telecom engineers, another is a cardiologist and a number of are serving members of the armed forces. Former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Amir Gulistan Janjua (AP2AGJ) was additionally a member.

There is nothing 'amateur' regarding PARS. During initial interviews, my employ of the word 'hobby' was met with polite clarification that every member was a professional and the operations are considered a service. Indeed, the Facebook page and website lists PARS as a non-profit organization with coordinators and representatives in all provinces. It does not accept donations or raise funds and the rule is that no politics or personal matters can ever be discussed on air.

Equipment is considered expensive but lasts decades. Members learn how to repair their own machines and one member even created a specialized battery that can power a number of radios at once. This spirit of invention additionally takes members to science fairs and expos. At an event in NUST in 2026, for example, PARS taught students how to create an antenna using a clothes hanger, with which they talked to someone in Gujranwala.

Some of the society's events, such as the annual session of its general body, take place at a university managed by one of the members. No premises have ever been acquired and the Society's headquarters are generally based at the licensed location of a senior member. At one point it was a school owned by a senior office bearer and afterwards another member's house. The boy who loved radios.

I met the Society's vice-president at his house in Islamabad that doubles as the organization's headquarters. I had the location PIN and house number but when I obtained there, I realised I had wasted my time looking at plaques in the street. It was the house with the massive antenna.

In a 'shack' on the roof I met one of its oldest active members, Asadullah Marwat (call sign AP2AUM). He is in his fifties and has the congenial air of a man who has been around individuals a lot. When he speaks, he moves from anecdote to anecdote, a sign of a life full of experiences. He is a lawyer who worked his way up to Assistant Advocate General of the then NWFP before switching careers to the United Nations.

Seasons have come and gone, Asadullah Marwat has changed cities for jobs and became a grandfather but the radio has been the one constant in his life. The set is switched on in his bedroom when he comes home from work, and it stays on until he falls asleep. After finally finding one that fit in her purse as she had been demanding for years, for her latest birthday, Marwat offered his supportive wife a walkie-talkie.

Marwat's first contact with radios came when he was a teenager living in Malakand, where his father was a administration officer. His father had acquired walkie-talkies to coordinate poppy eradication in the district at a time when channels of communication were limited. With not much else to do, the young Asad obtained one and kicked off fiddling around with it. He applied makeshift antennas to rise the radio's range until the antenna was so major that it kicked off to bend over.

In practice, the father and son were in the early days of their radio journeys when they learned regarding ham radios. A certain Farrukh Sahab (AP2FI) in Lahore had a powerful radio that he applied to talk to "faraway places" so Marwat's father loaded his children into the car and drove from Swat to Lahore to meet him. They watched in amazement when AP2FI talked to someone in Norway as a demonstration.

For context, a few years afterwards the family went to the Industrial Expo in Islamabad, where they saw a stall set up by PARS. They additionally met the late Nasir Khan, the long-time president of PARS who explained how things worked.

For context, the inspired duo purchased radios and were granted licenses a year afterwards in 1993. Asadullah Marwat has been on air since then and served as vice-president since 2014-15.

Even with no disaster relief going on, he finds plenty of time to have fun. In 2019, he spoke to the International Space Station as it passed over Pakistan. Inside the shack, he fires up the High Frequency transceiver and rolls the knob until voices come into focus. As we both lean forward to listen, "Russians, " he notes with a laugh.

PARS members often boast they are more adept than those who rely on radios for their professional duties. When a PARS member was approached for support by policemen on duty in Azad Kashmir deputed at Chilehana, the southernmost entry point for district Neelum, making it a key check post, an instance that demonstrated this arose in 2021. Their headquarters in Athmuqam was around 35km away by road.

Meanwhile, the policemen had been equipped with radios but they couldn't contact the headquarters reliably unless one of them climbed to the top of a mountain with a clear line of sight. There was only one difficulty, Chilehana sits right next to the Line of Control. It meant that it wasn't the greatest idea to have a man in uniform prowl around on a mountaintop looking for a signal.

Notably, the task of solving this mystery fell to one of the Society's experts, Mubeen Ajmal (AP2AJM) who had a degree in telecommunications engineering. As with plenty of children from the 1980s and 1990s, Ajmal was a fan of the Urdu spy novels Imran Series in which radio communication was a recurring theme. He came throughout PARS at a seminar at the Federal Urdu University, where he studied in 2006. He remained an SWL for six years, until he graduated and was able to set up his own station and earned a license in 2012.

Ajmal figured out that the radio transmission from the checkpost was failing to complete a 'hop' to the middle of the district, from where it would then hop again to reach the headquarters at Athmuqam. All it needed was some new hardware to obtain messages throughout. Antennas have a relation between dimensions and the frequencies they are best suited to. Ajmal asked for the exact frequencies the policemen operated on and fabricated a Yagi antenna (a popular directional antenna named after its Japanese founder) at his house with the precise measurements needed. He applied the best material he could find, in this instance a green PVC pipe as a boom to prop up the antenna.

After running computer-based and live simulations to see if his antenna was working, he then drove with Marwat and some other members to Neelum. They set up the antenna right outside the container checkpost. Within moments, the policeman's handheld radio crackled.

"Are you on the mountain again?" was the first thing the officer on the other end asked.

No sir, some men helped us fix the radio, the man on duty replied. 'Don't let them leave.

Notably, the hams barely had a second to glance at each other, wondering if there was trouble, before the officer continued that he wanted to invite them to dinner at his house.

PARS has since signed an MoU with KP's Rescue 1122 and supported restore or fix equipment in Galiyat and other regions. In August 2026, they travelled to Bahrain, in Swat, to fix an antenna that allowed the regional team to talk to headquarters again. When water kills power.

Inspired by the success in Kashmir, PARS began taking more interest in disaster relief. By the time the next one struck in 2010, the group was ready.

One of the first casualties was electricity after the rivers swelled and enveloped swathes of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Telecom towers shortly ran out of power and communications went down. It would take months to obtain cellular networks back up. One PARS team working on connecting Nowshera and Charsadda to Islamabad and Peshawar. Another team linked Faisalabad, Multan and Sargodha to Lahore.

PARS already had a 2-meter repeater but its coverage wasn't extending to far-flung areas. To fix this, they installed cross-band repeaters so they could employ handheld radios instead of being limited to base stations. It required electricity at a time when power was down.

In short, pakistan' s amateur radios are tuned in for the apocalypse is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.