Foundations of Amateur Radio

Today I'd like to start with saying thank you to the Wireless Institute of Australia for awarding me the Brenda Edmonds Education Award "in recognition of outstanding service in the education of the Amateur Radio Community and advancement of licensees."

It's an unexpected honour and a thrill that leads me to a question about how we recognise the people around us.

Over the years I've been a member of around a dozen radio amateur clubs and associations. To my recollection, the only one who has ever said thanks, and in my case, more than once, is the Wireless Institute of Australia.

What of the other clubs? What about the clubs you're a member of, or the groups you meet-up, either for lunch or on the local repeater? What about when you go out on a field-day and set-up a barbecue?

I look around me and I see activity that goes back more than a century. It's fair to say that every member of the community benefits from that effort. Memes on social media notwithstanding, there is real labour and toil, love and heartbreak, success and failure all around you.

What process do you have in place to say thanks?

Now before you start handing out participation trophies to everyone who turns up, mind you, they did when others didn't, consider what saying thanks might look like in your community?

It could be a special QSL card, or a certificate sent in the mail that someone could hang on their wall. I'm not advocating for sending out monetary awards or trophies, or other such paraphernalia, I'm just asking you to consider who in your group is worthy of a thank you and what that might look like.

You should also think about what you're saying thank you about. Is it for output, for the number of laughs, the level of participation, how many new club members were signed up, how many contacts someone made, how much fund raising they achieved, how many radios they fixed or how many nets they hosted, or something else?

You can think about who in your community might serve as an example to strive for and name the award after them. It might be someone who is active right now, or it might be someone who has attained mythical status in the stories you tell each other around the campfire during an overnight activity.

No matter what you call it, what it's for, how often you award it, what you present and whom you present it to, consider that it's a formal way of saying thank you, from the group to the individual, from all of you to one person in particular.

Since starting F-troop, I've now hosted more than 600 weekly nets for new and returning amateurs, a feat which we recently celebrated with a morning breakfast on the local aptly named Wireless Hill, but I couldn't have done it without the local repeater group who maintains the repeater we use. I also couldn't have done it without the countless individuals who join in every week, or who quietly sit on the sidelines making sure that the various nodes scattered around the globe are up and running, or the people who did the catering and logistics for the event.

Looking back, for me that event represents a missed opportunity to say thank you, something which I intend to do something about in the near future.

So, ask yourself. When was the last time someone in your community received a thank-you for their contribution?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB