Post ARBLVvusZNwxBgb9CS by danak6jq@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by danak6jq@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #ARBLVuiR2AOxSnlhAG by brouhaha@mastodon.social
2022-12-31T21:25:21Z
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I just renewed my #ARRL membership.
(DIR) Post #ARBLVv91RJfWnGCvbc by cross@discuss.systems
2022-12-31T22:37:20Z
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@brouhaha I'm a life member. Sometimes I kinda regret that....
(DIR) Post #ARBLVvusZNwxBgb9CS by danak6jq@mastodon.social
2022-12-31T22:41:15Z
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@cross @brouhaha sometime in the last decade I was thinking about a life membership. I suppose I'll live enough years yet to break even (or better) and I'm all for supporting the advocacy work. Yet, QST doesn't seem to bring me the joy it used to, how about another effectively useless QRP 40m project (with Arduino now!) ? (Beginning hams should NOT start out with QRP, that's ridiculous)
(DIR) Post #ARBLVwJh57ncQeCxsW by ka9q@mastodon.hams.social
2022-12-31T23:07:10Z
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@danak6jq @cross @brouhaha Oh, I dunno; I might not be personally interested in those "trivial" projects, but if one of them grabs a young ham interested in knowing what goes on behind the knobs of his/her radio, then they're still worthwhile. Ham radio is an umbrella hobby with MANY sub-specialties.
(DIR) Post #ARBLVwlLQJuvoP92ye by danak6jq@mastodon.social
2022-12-31T23:11:57Z
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@ka9q @cross @brouhaha I built my first transmitter, a 40m QRP MOPA, maybe 1W. Made no contacts until I called my mentor across town. Someone loaned me a real radio (DX-60B IIRC) a month or two later and *that* was encouraging. QRP radios are boutique items that require skill, experience and patience to operate.
(DIR) Post #ARBLVxJNNn8hVx4E1Q by ka9q@mastodon.hams.social
2022-12-31T23:13:28Z
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@danak6jq @cross @brouhaha Yes they are, but you can still learn a lot of electronics by building one (and having a QSO with your mentor across town). To me, ham radio is all about **education**. That may or may not involve making lots of QSOs.
(DIR) Post #ARBLaZ4iv7M3nKPYtE by cross@discuss.systems
2022-12-31T23:24:38Z
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@ka9q @danak6jq I _love_ the educational mission, but we don't promote it enough.Take the emcomm mission that @brouhaha mentioned. As a former military communicator, I can say unequivocally that hams do Not provide the level of material support we like to think we do: when I was in Afghanistan, the idea of a MARS operator patching HF to a phone connection so troops could make a call home didn't make much sense when I had an iridium phone and could make a call whenever I wanted (outside of a River City event, of course). But what hams _could_ do is act as a training auxiliary on a served agency's gear. Or we could provide testing services to get people licensed up so that _they_ could practice radio protocol. But instead we pretend a bunch of us are going to be the communications lynchpin for our communities. It's a dated view of the mission.
(DIR) Post #ARBLaZSpTUdZ05goSm by mattblaze@federate.social
2022-12-31T23:27:08Z
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@cross @ka9q @danak6jq @brouhaha Oh my god so much this.Back in the day I did emergency and disaster management stuff for the Red Cross. Because I had a license, I often coordinated with amateur groups. It was, shall we say, mostly a matter of managing expectations.
(DIR) Post #ARBLaZy1bVagYqHj5U by mattblaze@federate.social
2022-12-31T23:29:22Z
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@cross @ka9q @danak6jq @brouhaha The frustrating thing was you had people who wanted to be helpful, but had a narrow view of what they wanted to do. So if you needed someone to drive a bunch of supplies to a shelter, you generally had to make up some way radio would be involved.