Essays and Writings

I tend to write a lot. It seems to be a good way to get my thoughts organized. Sometimes what I write is fairly lengthy. Sometimes it's really short. But if I assemble something amateur radio related that I feel others might want to see, I'll stick it om this directory. Some of the things I write are serious, but most tend to have some sort of ingrained humor in them.

The Future of Amateur Radio
After witnessing first hand the destructive effects elitism can have on the amateur radio hobby, I wrote this essay in February of 2001. Some of my views have changed since, but I feel that most of what I stated in this essay is still accurate. I do attempt to update the links from time to time, to keep them to the spirit of what I wrote.

So you want to be a repeater trustee....
Written in March of 2003, this report documented what I felt it took to be a good repeater trustee. If you read through this and still want to take on the responsibility, you're probably ready for the task, in my opinion.

An open letter to the wasps that used to live in the repeater shack.
A humorous treatise I wrote for the June, 2005 issue of The Spark Gap, the monthly newsletter of The Mid-State Amateur Radio Club. I'm not really sure what the motivation was for this article, but I really like the way it came out, for some reason.

Are YOU an Amateur Radio Ambassador?
On July 31st, 2005, one of my elmers and friends, Bob DeSpain N9DE became a silent key. This prompted me to think of how much his being my elmer meant to me, and made me reflect on what was really important to the hobby. This essay, published in the August 2005 issue of the Spark Gap, was my tribute to Bob, and my challenge to everyone else, including myself, to live up to the example he set.