Fellowship Hall

GALCOM International - Radios for the world

Rev. Allan McGuirl, one of three founders of GALCOM, calls the radios ‘portable missionaries’ with some remarkable qualities. “They have no head, no arms, no legs, they don’t need a visa, they don’t need a holiday, they speak the language immediately, work 24 hours a day and never need a break” he says.

GALCOM's international director Rev. Allan McGuirl, from Hamilton, distributes solar powered radios to two young service station workers in Micronesia

Working with partners all over the world, GALCOM has sent out more than 600,000 radios to more than 125 countries since the venture began in 1989. Each radio is able to bring Christian programming to 10 people on average, which means an estimated 6-million people have been able to hear the message of salvation on a daily basis through this one ministry.

At the heart of GALCOM’s ministry is a small fixed-tune radio. There are four models, each powered by an attached solar panel. Their tuning is fixed to the frequency of the Christian radio station that is local to the area where they are sent. The four designs – appropriately named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – are mostly assembled by volunteers at GALCOM’s Nebo Road facility. Last year more than 58,000 radios were sent out into the mission field and this year may be even busier. The mission has the capacity to produce twice as many radios, and the need is clear.

The only thing holding us back is a lack of funds,” says Rev. McGuirl. ”We work on the principle that we will not do a project unless we have the funds in hand. We pay as we go.”

GALCOM works with hundreds of partners around the world, providing the radios and technical expertise needed to get the Word out. The ministry’s name comes from the Hebrew word ‘gal’, meaning commit and ‘com’, the short form of the word ‘communication’.

"What we do is identify the need,” he says. “For example there is a project in Zambia right now where they have the license to broadcast, but they need money for a tower, and they need engineering. We let them know what is required. Then we go to churches, individuals, and foundations and ask if they will help get the Gospel to this particular tribal group in Zambia.”

Rev. Allan McGuirl, from Hamilton, explains how to operate the solar powered radio to a woman in Micronesia

Setting up a small broadcast station to reach a 40-60 mile radius costs about $10-12,000, Rev. McGuirl says. Once the Christian programming begins, entire villages can be transformed.

In Ecuador, a young man got the last radio distributed in his area, but he didn’t want his neighbours to be left out.

Assembled in Hamilton, the solar-powered foursome of 'Matthew, Mark, Luke and John' are bringing God’s Word to remote areas of the world.

The stories of transformation span the globe, from Mexico to Micronesia. Depending on the terrain, radios are tuned to stations on the FM, AM, shortwave or tropical band, which involves bouncing a radio signal off the ionosphere.

The radios are also sent in to prisons in the United States, where the demand is growing. Another new and growing area of mission is the distribution of radios to military personnel in southern Iraq.

There are three Christian radio stations there and the military is asking for radios for the soldiers to listen to before they go out in the mornings,” says Rev. McGuirl. “They love these radios.”

Many radios are shipped directly to partner organizations for distribution, while others are sent with mission teams from North America, who distribute them “by canoe, horseback, donkey, camel – whatever way they can to get them into really remote areas,” he says.

Some radios are dropped from low-flying planes to areas inaccessible by any other means. GALCOM has designed two types of mini-parachutes, each sewn by volunteers who produce about 200 a month. Sewing patterns are available from GALCOM for groups who want to support this part of the ministry. Information is on the web at www.galcom.org.

Volunteers assemble radios at GALCOM's Nebo Road facility in Hamilton.

Although the majority of the radios are sent to remote areas, some are used right here in Canada.

“We had the opportunity to set up an FM station in Pickle Lake, Ontario, to reach the Ojibway and Cree people. They are facing some terrible spiritual struggles,” Rev. McGuirl says. Pickle Lake will have the mother station, and repeaters will be placed in Thunder Bay and Winnipeg.

It will reach that whole area, about 100,000 people in small remote communities.”

GALCOM’s radio assembly is based in Hamilton, but the company has international roots.

"My wife and I started with less than $100 and just stepped out in faith,” Allan says. While he was tinkering with a design for a fixed-tune radio in Hamilton, two others in Israel and Florida were working toward the same goal. Harold Kent in Florida and Ken Crowell in Israel had a vision of a radio ministry as well, and the three were brought together at a conference in 1989. After overcoming the design difficulties of producing a radio sturdy enough to be dropped from a plane, fixing the tuning to a single frequency, and powering it with a renewable energy source, the first radios were produced and sent into Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

The designs are continually improved and further research and development is carried out at the Nebo Rd. facility. Allan McGuirl Jr. heads up that department, using his expertise in computers. His latest project is a new transmitter without the ‘bells and whistles’ that aren’t needed in the mission field. The new GALCOM designed transmitter will have a solid, heavy case for durability, be mainly software controlled, and have a lower price.

"We design them to be basic, meet the needs and keep the costs down,” Rev. McGuirl says.

In addition to the radios, GALCOM also provides studio kits for radio station start-up and speech translation units to the mission field. A recent addition is the MegaVoice, which can contain an audio recording of the entire Bible on a microchip inside a case the size of a cell phone. This is used both in remote areas and in ministry to the blind.

Rev. Allan McGuirl

Watching his son work on the new transmitter design, Allan recalls his early tinkering days. As a 10-year-old growing up near Ottawa, he had alarms and wires hooked up so his older sisters couldn’t make off with his pens and pencils. He also had “a bunch of old radios” wired to an antenna running out his bedroom window. He could pick up radio stations from around the world.

"Little did I realize that so many years later I would be involved with a ministry that distributes radios,” says Rev. McGuirl.

"God uses the weak and finite. GALCOM puts radio stations all over the world and I’m not even an engineer. But God provides the ideas and abilities to reach the unreached through Christian radio.”