Foundations of Amateur Radio

The art of amateur radio is many things to many people. For me it's a technological challenge, a learning, a way to broaden my experience, a way to be technically active away from my consultancy. The place that amateur radio takes in your life might be the same, or it might be completely different, as varied as the people I've encountered since I became an amateur.

People from all walks of life with different experiences and vastly different stories. Truth be told, in the decade that I've been an amateur, I've spoken to and met people from more diverse backgrounds than in the forty years before that. I make that statement as a person who migrated across the globe twice, travelled through a dozen or so countries, stood on stage in front of thousands of people, taught countless classes and as a radio broadcaster interviewed people from all over the planet.

From paraplegic to quadriplegics, from people with terminal diseases to people struggling with their identity, from astronomers to astrologers, from train drivers to truck drivers, from mariners to motorcyclists, from working to retired, from healthy to hospitalised, from local to remote, from energetic to sedentary, from happy to sad, from connected to isolated and everything in between.

As a host of a weekly net for new and returning amateurs I've begun to notice that some people are falling away, either sitting on the side because they feel that they have nothing to contribute, or stopping communication altogether.

It occurred to me that for some people amateur radio is the only way that they connect to the world around them. It's the only way for them to meet people who are different, who walk a different path, who tell a different story. It's also sometimes the only thing that makes them get out of bed.

In a world where we're all busy, dealing with the realities of daily life, trying hard to figure out what our place is in that experience and trying hard not to lose your identity while you're attempting this, it's easy to overlook the amateur you didn't hear from for a week or a month.

I know that for several of my new friends, amateur radio kept them alive for longer and made them smile more often and made their life a little easier, even if several of them have become a Silent Key since I counted them as my friend.

When one of the main activities of our hobby is communication, it seems appropriate to take a moment to consider what that looks like from the other person's perspective. What might it be like to be acknowledged, to be validated as a human, to see them and their life, to speak with them, even if only briefly, and to take a moment out of our own busy existence and answer that CQ, or respond to a question, or smile with a fellow amateur.

There is another aspect to this, one which I've not actually seen in the amateur community. Perhaps I've been too busy to notice, but it appears that the venerable telephone circle, the idea that one person calls the next person on the list, who then calls the next and so-on. If the last person doesn't get a call within a set time, they call the list backwards and discover who is not answering their phone. It's an effective way for people to regularly talk to each other and it's an excellent way to make sure that everyone is OK.

In our own community of amateurs we can do the very same thing. Hosting a net is one way, having a daily commuter chat is another, but when you do this, take a moment to consider who didn't check in and see what they're up to.

It's fascinating to me that we're a hobby that's primarily made of old men, yet we haven't actually embraced our own ageing process as part of the experience. Sure there is a need to encourage new people into the hobby, but that's not the entire story. We should be so lucky as to speak with our friends on a regular basis, to check-in with each other and to make sure that we're all getting our daily dose of RF.

So, ask yourself how the community around you is doing and how you might take a moment to check-in with those not so near, but just as dear to you.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB