Foundations of Amateur Radio

The other day a member of our community proudly showed off their plaque for first place as a Short Wave Listener or SWL in the Poland SP DX Contest. Together with their dad they listened on 80m using a WebSDR and logged all the contacts they were able to hear. Their participation didn't include transmitters, since neither have got their callsigns, yet.

To me this illustrates exactly what it's like to dip your toes into the world of amateur radio and it's a path that many amateurs have taken to become licensed and transmitting.

I'm mentioning this because that same short wave listener also won a platinum diploma from the anniversary of Stanislaw Lem's 100th birthday amateur contest.

If that name sends tingles of excitement down your spine, you're familiar with his work. If not, you might be interested to know that Stanislaw Lem was a world acclaimed Polish writer of science fiction who died in 2006.

This random discovery, in addition to giving me ideas about opportunities for contests and awards, reminded me of other times when in one setting I've been surprised by information relating to another setting. In this case, science fiction. In previous workplaces I've come across software developers, technicians and managers who outside their roles in computing were active as volunteer fire-fighters, paramedics, writers, stage performers, singers, foster parents and more.

It occurred to me that we in the amateur radio community spend most, if not all, of our time discussing amateur radio, but that we likely share other interests with our community. I recently discovered other science fiction nerds, a cos-player, there's some volunteer fire-fighters and the like, no doubt there's more.

My point being that in addition to finding more common ground between us as a community, we also have the opportunity to share our hobby with other people who share our interests. It's hard to imagine that science fiction fans and fire-fighters for example are unable to relate to amateur radio.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating that you hit the members of your other communities over the back of the head with amateur radio. Instead, think of it as another way to connect to that group.

The thing that strikes me about our amateur community is the diversity that it encompasses. It means that there's likely plenty of other interests that you will find that bind you to other amateurs and it likely means that your other hobbies and interests might share some of your amateur interests.

Truth be told, as all consuming as amateur radio is, it's not the only thing that defines you and it's not the only thing of interest to the people around you.

What those interests are is up to you.

Only one way to find out.

Talk with your friends.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB