DU ham radio ops. VIP in my shack today.

He operated as K4/MI0AEX. He is the president/ceo of The Radio Society of Great Britain. We hit it off great! You long-time hams and SWL-ers can imagine what an honor this was.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x1165461

From what I could gather, people talk a lot about how far their signal is getting out.

But we provide the best emergency public service by assuring our radio product through legal, licensed adjustment, tuning, and training. Hope your community never needs us (like, after a tornado or hurricane).

Maybe someday at a DU function in DC, we'd get to meet.

It's like photography or computers. Lots of people enjoy technology-based hobbies. When I was young ham radio was one of the only hobbies available for those interested in electronics, and it had a magical draw. Today, many of those involved in computers as a hobby would have been involved in ham radio if they had been born in the 1950s.

There have also been many technology advances made by hams. A ham in my area of SC developed, in the early 1980s, a new way to build microwave amplifiers for satellite dishes - he was building kits on his pool table for other hams and didn't realize that he had discovered something new. His methods are now used by Hewlett Packard. He owned the local junkyard, by the way, but now spends his days sailing.

I like building electronic gadgets so ham radio is a natural for me. I love the technology and while I don't get on the radio and talk a lot, I am always fiddling with something. There are times when I do get on and talk and there's magic in speaking with another person in Poland, or South America, or just across town.

Most importantly, when our area has been slammed by weather, as it was during Hurricane Hugo in 1989, ham radio was one of the only methods of getting information in and out of many areas in the Carolinas. We are always ready and able to provide this service, and it will be as valuable in the future as it has been in the past - you can count on that.

But if you're stoked, then I am stoked for you...:hi:

I've got a short-wave receiver in my bedroom that needs calibrating.

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