Why don't you just call or text each other?

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nanZor

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Heh, rhetorical question!

My siblings STILL don't get it decades later when they first asked me that after getting licensed in the 70's.

But what I realize is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. But one thing hasn't changed - is the basic allure of amateur radio and it's wireless connection. Just as valid then as it is now, despite the advances in consumer technology.

Mid 70's - just me and my Heathkit HW-101. Inverted vee strung up a few feet over the house. With shaky hands, made my first contact just a few hundred miles away into Arizona. My mind was blown for hours and I sat contemplating it like I had just seen a great movie. I might as well have been talking to someone on Pluto.

So that was totally new - with only a modicum of effort between me and the other station, we communicated where other than the very interesting technical issues of power, antenna, radio and some small talk I had done something new:

I just communicated with a total stranger - where race, creed, color, religion, politics, age, sex, nor social status was involved. And being on CW, there wasn't even any voice inflection. WOW that was cool. NOW I totally get it.

I pulled out the map, and proudly showed my accomplishment to my siblings.

"But why don't you just call him on the phone?"

Ugh. Aside from being an expensive long distance call in the middle of the day, that's not the point I exclaimed. I'm not trying to beat the phone company. I don't WANT to just pick up a phone and talk to someone across the globe, even if I had all the money in the world. It's not about that.

So yesterday while they visited, I had to laugh when they saw the gear again, and asked "Why don't you just TEXT or call them?"

Chuckle. It still stays the same - underneath all the new modes and changes in technology, that basic instinct to communicate based on your own efforts with someone else who has put forth the effort to talk to you, without necessarily involving a commercial link in between, is what it's all about.

Yes, the gear, antennas, modes and so forth are important. Yet sometimes I see *today's* elmers getting so hung up on gear, that they forget to tell an inspiring newcomer what it's all about underneath it all - the spirit. Otherwise, we become a cheap imitation of a commercial communications company.

We all started somewhere, so please don't crush a newcomer's spirit - or perhaps remind them of that spirit I took part in with my very first contact long ago. Years and hardware has come and gone, but the spirit of wireless communications is still there as if it was my first day. You can't buy that.
 
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iMONITOR

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Oh boy your post brings back memories! Back in 1965 when I was 15 my dad brought home an old Executive CB that someone threw out at an old gas station. The owner gave it to me dad. It looked very similar to the picture below. He secured a license and got it working. He made a back of set antenna using some 10ga solid copper wire, about 102" long, rolled about half of it into a coil at the bottom about 2" dia. with a 90 degree bend and inserted it in the center of the SO239 connector on the back. He said it up in the basement so it wouldn't bother my mother. With all that against good performance, after trying for about an hour, I made contact with a guy in Livonia, Michigan, from N-W Detroit where I grew up. It was about 5 miles. It was one of the most exciting experiences of my lifetime!

1548884003492.png
 

bharvey2

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Yeah, the independence and accomplishment of doing it yourself is quite the rush, especially in the beginning. Unfortunately, some just don't get it. I remember when I first got started, built something from the ground up and was able to hear some distant place or communicate with someone afar. Nothing like it.
 

RFI-EMI-GUY

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I hate to say it but the future generation is hooked on shiny stuff that is dependent upon the cloud. They don't understand that once they are dependent on cloud services they are getting ripped off financially as well as their personal privacy.



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Boombox

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It's the idea of using the ionosphere, or ether, to communicate with other people. I mean, astronomy and other hobbies are the same. Why look at the skies with a telescope when you can just go on the internet and look at pictures? Why use a microscope to look at things when there are photos online already? Why ride a bike when you can watch cool videos of the Tour De France or whatever? Even though I am not a ham, I am a MW DXer, SWL, and have shot skip on sideband CB. I like the idea of seeing what the sky has to offer. It not only has been fun, I also have learned a little about the earth and science in the process. I think that has value. But I realize there is no getting through to some people. There never was, and probably never will be, with some. Convenience trumps the fascination with "magnets and miracles" (as Pink Floyd put it once).
 

majoco

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Some of my biggest thrills was CW-ing on 80m to someone in Europe on the gray line - only time for a 30second exchange of info before the gray line moved on and then someone called me! Late afternoon here, early morning there, S9 signals each way - magic! An FT901 into a trap vertical but a wonderful site sloping down to the sea about 5miles away facing northwest.
 

quad_track

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You could try telling them that when they make a mobile call or text message, they are still using radio. Someone has to design those radios, someone has to understand the basic principles behind it, and the easiest way to do that is get an amateur license and experiment on the air various contraptions. I remember some time ago speaking to a friend about how GSM/3G/LTE is basically just another type of radio transmission, and he was very surprised, he thought radio was just the FM broadcast stations. Then I got into Bluetooth, 802.11 b/g/n and how I can use those as an amateur operator and I almost convinced him to get a license as well :D
 

nanZor

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All very true ..

I think the biggest attraction and best advice was that my elmer's didn't make amateur radio the entirety of their life, although it was certainly a large part.

I was just yearning to be a little different from the rest - yet not be a total outcast.

Sure, I had my bell-bottoms and long hair, and plenty of time "in the cloud" listening to *my* vast collection of Pink Floyd albums. I used to get a total kick out of getting the stink-eye from some in the older generation, thinking that they knew me, when they had no idea I knew and used morse code and was communicating in a very cool way. Not every day, but the disciplined fun of it all was a welcome break from the real world evil at times. I would just have a smug little grin inside when I was basically profiled as a loser.

So for every 1 in 100 people texting away, that 1 may be yearning to communicate in a slightly different way as a hobby, and not as a replacement for how they communicate now.

They just need the introduction without threatening to change their whole way of life. Seeing those fingers fly texting away, I see natural-born high speed cw contesters. :)
 

N4GIX

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I just communicated with a total stranger - where race, creed, color, religion, politics, age, sex, nor social status was involved. And being on CW, there wasn't even any voice inflection. WOW that was cool. NOW I totally get it.

I pulled out the map, and proudly showed my accomplishment to my siblings.

"But why don't you just call him on the phone?"
To which I would have replied: "I'm supposed to know his phone number, how exactly?"

Indeed, there are many people who simply cannot grasp even the obvious. :rolleyes:
 

majoco

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I suppose it could be likened to punching in ( can't call it 'dialling' any more! ) a random series of numbers into your phone and seeing who answers.....

....but that's what the so-called "Microsoft Service Agents" do - perhaps?
 
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"My siblings STILL don't get it decades later when they first asked me (about my radio license)"



Want my opinion ? (like I wasn't going to give it :) )

I had to ponder just what it is that makes this hobby tick with so many. And I couldn't come up with a simple formulae. What's neat is that it can encompass so many other interests under the umbrella of 'radio.' Communicating is but a part of it.... but for some of us, its the simple thrill of making it Work.


I recently took a drive out into the New Mexico desert to (re)visit a favorite place;
--- Chaco Canyon*- centre of the Anasazi culture from the 10th to the 12th centuries.

Tho mostly a mystical site for me, I get off on the astonishing technical, scientific things these people did. They're known for their wizardry with astronomy- but what also amazes me is how they communicated from one village, one towne, almost instantly- from deep in central America to the outer fringes of their civilisation. Each of their dwellings was site'd within sight of others- Though separated often by many miles, they could see each other - And they could communicate along these lines, stretching hundreds of miles- by signal beacons of fire- each towne relaying some importance along the course. I'm sure that this system must have involved some of their brightest Hams in the communities;

"We just talked to Nal'ii over in Pinyon Canyon !"

"That's nice-- (yawn) - why didn't you just walk over there and talk to them ?"

I think we've been trying to explain the fascination with communications and its technology for a very long time.


Lauri :sneaky:


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Chaco Culture National Historical Park - Wikipedia
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6079smithw

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"I just communicated with a total stranger - where race, creed, color, religion, politics, age, sex, nor social status was involved. And being on CW, there wasn't even any voice inflection. WOW that was cool. "But why don't you just call him on the phone?"
To which I would have replied: "I'm supposed to know his phone number, how exactly?"

I would hand the kid the phone and say: "OK, just dial a number at random and start a conversation with whoever answers. You'll have the answer to your question in 5 seconds."
 

Boombox

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Chaco Canyon.... that brings back memories. Was a very interesting place. Walking the trails there always brought to me the lyrics from "Horse With No Name", for some reason.

A lot of what we deal with in the radio hobbies is cultural. And some people just will never understand radio hobbies, just as they don't understand something like rockhounding, or beachcombing, or even a more popular one like fishing (why use a stupid pole with a hook when you can just buy fish at the supermarket?).

I luckily haven't had to deal with many people who were quizzical about my radio hobby. I try to express my interest in terms that might make them understand. But in today's technologically advanced world, anything that is old tech is deemed useless.
 

quad_track

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And being on CW, there wasn't even any voice inflection.

An interesting fact about CW is that experienced operators don't actually work in two-symbol space with even timing changes. Instead of a flow of dit-dah symbols, they actually hear a letter, so their symbol space is actually much larger. Also, the way an operator accentuates some symbols (minute timing changes) like diit-dit-dah for example instead of dit-dit-dah can allow someone who has heard them before to instantly tell who they are. Electronic keyers and paddles have somewhat destroyed that. I guess the more you automate, the more you rely on an MCU to control the operation, the more information you lose.
 

majoco

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Along " quad_track's " lines - I've told this story before.... Back in the 60's when I was training to be a Merchant Navy Radio Officer, our morse tutor for the first year, Percy something, was a retired coast station operator. When we got to the second year, another ex coast station guy came along - his first morning was spent listening to our individual sending abilities. Next day he came back to our classroom and said "I couldn't work out why you all sounded the same, so I went and got Percy to send to me - you all sound like him!" Pretty soon we got a nice new Creed reperforater and sender!
 

ridgescan

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I like what Coyote had to say.
I am one whose eyes always seek out any kind of antenna as I fly down a freeway-arrays, MW flamers, mountain tops etc. I'm just wired like that. And I'm alone with it.
I still remember back in '88 when I first got my SX-88-such a glorious radio right? And my stepson sees it and says "it's too damn big, you should just get rid of it". And so it goes with anyone who comes into my home even now. Radios are of such little consequence to people, only me. And, I'm alone with it. In the living room sits the R75 with its power supply, and an Alpha Delta switch/coax lines. In the bedroom there are the SX-88....an absolutely imposing monster, a DX-160, and the R8600 and scanner at the desk. And a rotator control and two more A/D switches. And each and every one of them look right past all this radio overkill with an almost glaze over their eyes-not ONE passing comment to be had.
Proving beyond a reasonable doubt, I truly AM all alone in radio heaven.
 
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Since I took a tangent about radio enthusiasts (note, I did not limit this to hams)- radio enthusiast's interest in communications not just radio, I'll introduce another fascinating twist - fascinating to me anyway- the Napoleonic telegraphic semaphore system of the early 19th century.

Napoleonic semaphore, called Le Systeme Chappe. comprised the stations of the world's first telegraph networks. Le Systeme, carried by relay, messages across France --at speeds faster than anyone thought possible in the early 1800's- for at that time the quickest communications were at the speeds a courier could ride a horse. At the heigth of the system there were over 500 stations extending beyond the fringes of the French empire. A communique that took four days by horse could be sent in 3 hours by this 'telegraph'** system.

Then, by the 1850's, Samuel Morse had eclipse'd the system and it fell into historical obscurity.

Ah !, but what I love about this lost art is the groups of amateurs reviving this system. Sort of like CW- somethings only get more attractive with age. These guys have reconstructed a station in the Alps where they do demonstrations of this quirky "texting" system.

(I sometimes give informal talks on these "pre-electronics" communications at the US Naval Academy.)
......... For those interested further in this topic, here's a place to start

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Chappe Optical Telegraph
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Lauri :sneaky:
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**The word "telegraph" - the Greek meaning "distance writing," - it was the first use of the term to describe Claude Chappe's semaphore network.
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quad_track

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I recently took a drive out into the New Mexico desert to (re)visit a favorite place;
--- Chaco Canyon*- centre of the Anasazi culture from the 10th to the 12th centuries.
Chaco Culture National Historical Park - Wikipedia

Some very nice views out there, reminds me a little of this place: Tassili n'Ajjer which is probably better described in the book written by Henri Lhote (I won't link to it since I don't know if it's already public domain or not, but it can be found on archive.org).
 
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