Ham Radio

I'm sure a lot of you have heard of it. Might even be a few "hams" out there. Officially known as Amateur Radio, it's been around for a long, long time. It was made up of tinkerers, those who like to build their own radios, modify military surplus radios, and whatever.

Hams have been the communications lifeblood during natural disasters from the beginning. When all forms of comemrcial communications, these tinkerers managed to get a rig on the air and make contact with the outside world. And, they are still in existence, in spite of the internet, cell phones, satellite phones, and all of the modern marvels of today's communications world. You know, the devices that all too often fail to work during times of disaster.

I was recently reacquanited with amateur radio. I had my first "ticket" (license) back in 1961, as a kid, I will add. I "worked" stations (other hams) all over the world from my "shack" out back. It had to be there because the equipment was pretty large and would have consumed way too much of my bedroom. My transmitter occupied the biggest chunk of space, and managed to provide enough heat, a byproduct of very large vaccuum tubes, to keep the shack warm in the coldest winter months.

I graduated to a much smaller combo transmitter/receiver as I approached high school graduation. This transceiver found it's way into my bedroom, as it was small enough to fit on a card table in a corner. From that little corner, I talked with other hams all over the country, in fact, all over the world. I still have many of the QSL cards (postcards we exchanged "confirming" our conversations) from England, Germany, South Africa, Antartica, Puerto Rica, and dozens of other countries.

Like I said, I have found myself involved in this wonderful hobby once again. I passed an FCC exam (there's some technical stuff on it), found out my original call sign had become available, applied for it, and I am, once again, WA4HMR.

It's amazing to hear and reach out and talk with perfect strangers again, strangers that are fast becoming friends. My first "long distance" contact this week was a gentleman in Omaha. All of this with a transceiver slightly larger than today's C-B radios. Amazing advance in technology. I intend to mount this rig on my boat, and I'll be able to use it in my truck on long travels. Much more entertaining than listening to commercial radio (or even satellite radio), More personal than any social networks on the internet...you actually carry on conversations with people of all kinds.

If you've ever thought about taking up this hobby, I can highly recommend it. Ham clubs all over give free classes. There are several license categories, some requiring the barest of knowledge to get started. To be able to work folks, as I do, all over the world, you will want to "move on up" to a higher class of license so you can work on the HF (high frequency) bands. You'll learn, soon enough, that each "band of frequencies" has its own characteristics. At different times of the day and year, different parts of the world are at your door. If yu ahve an interest, check out the web...you can likely find a club in your community. And, you can bet that hams are the absolute friendliest people in the world, always willing to help a fellow ham...and, they want no money for it.

Now, that's a unqiue group of people.