A Short Rant on my Goals and
Methods
I have always run my life around lists, charts of lists,
books of lists, outlines of lists. Here
is my list of goals and objectives that drives participation in amateur
radio. From this, you can see that one
of my major goals is to manifest aspects of my personality through identifiable
projects.
Amateur radio provides an avenue for sanity:
If it ain’t fun, it ain’t
something I wanna do. My daily life
is filled with people in crisis; amateur radio somehow uses a different portion
of my brain or mind from the professional work.
It may be the fact that the radio either works or it doesn’t, or the
mystery of electromagnetic communications.
I can be totally stressed and just sit tuning the bands to feel a
relaxation.
Contribution to society:
Historically and presently, one of the greatest
contributions amateur radio makes is through provision of reliable
communications during disasters. I am a
member of the Jackson County ARES unit, the Salvation Army SATERN emergency
net, and regularly check-in on the Pacific Maritime Net.
Some of my disaster communications interests involve
NVIS antenna construction, low-cost wide-area packet station, and solar and
battery power. Refer to the Projects
section for more info.
Provide means for artistic expression:
Building stuff, whether it is a battery regen, a
garage-warming flamethrower amplifier contraption or a
Increase personal knowledge
of cultures and geography by communicating and corresponding with radio
amateurs in other countries:
DX and other contests, QSL cards, correspondence
Advance technical aspects
by increased understanding and planned utilization of knowledge about solar
phenomena, ionization, space weather, and geomagnetic effects on
electromagnetic wave propagation:
Advance the avocation of
amateur radio by participating in activities making communications equipment
affordable and accessible to anyone interested in the hobby:
I am very interested in what I call “Junk into RF”
projects. This was more representative
of amateur radio in the past than now.
My first functioning transmitter was something another ham was throwing
away; power supply parts came from a record player amplifier. Parts for various other rigs came from old TV
sets and table model AM radios. Although
the cost of equipment relative to performance has generally decreased over the
years, there are still many people who would participate in amateur radio but
cannot afford to purchase something other than a used 2-meter HT. During a recent club sponsored kids-day, I
chatted on 20-meters with a ten year old who was using a field-day rig that I
estimated cost over $4,000. The little
guy was smitten by the ham-bug, but was also clearly awed by the rig and the
computer controlling it. The station op
was a great fellow who didn’t seem to understand how I could put out such a
strong signal with an old tube rig and a straight wire without using an
amp. (It’s called “carefully tuning to
resonance.”) If we are going to keep the
HF bands, more people need to have the opportunity to snort rosin and cobble
things together. This opportunity will
come from curmudgeons who figure out simple projects and then make the
information available. I still look for
CB radios I can convert to 10-meters.
Thus endeth this rant.