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Ham Radio Still Growing In the iStuff Age
vhfer writes "From NPR comes this story about old-school communications in the age of Twitter: 'Only a few years ago, blogs listed ham radio alongside 35 mm film and VHS tape as technologies slated to disappear. They were wrong. Nearly 700,000 Americans have ham radio licenses — up 60 percent from 1981, a generation ago. And the number is growing.' The article goes on to say that while there's plenty of 60-plus year old hams, there's also a growing contingent of teens. I just met a 14-year-old, licensed in 2009. Getting rid of the Morse Code requirement sure helped in that regard. So does the fact that the test questions (and the answers) are freely available, legally, on the Internet. Study, take the test, hang the license certificate on the wall. Your geek cred gets an immediate boost. And who knows? Maybe the next time there's a Haiti-earthquake-sized disaster, you'll be one of the thousands of ham volunteers who provided the only communications in/out of Haiti for weeks following the quake, not to mention all of the tactical comms the country had for nearly a month."
..de KB0HAW
... and if nothing else, you'll get a great unique ID to use online!
Man, I wish I had a link to that Dilbert where he is worried about going into management ruining his geek cred with his girlfriend.
"What if I got a Ham Radio license to compensate?"
And, unlike chatroulette, very few of them are masturbating.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
...that you know of.
It's a shame they took away the Unix system admin requirement to use the Internet as well, it's been all downhill since then.
So did she say yes when you asked her out?
Don't fall for the ham scam!
BEWARE .... radio is *not* made of Ham, but rather made of plastic.
This review is from: Galaxy DX2517 10 Meter Base Ham Radio
I had wanted to get a radio made of ham for an anniversary present, but unfortunately I didn't read the product description properly. This also isn't actually 10 meters big, I was hoping for an approx. 30 foot in circumference radio made of ham. It's much smaller than that and fits on a small desk.
After the international requirements for Morse were removed, I wondered why I couldn't test in some other mode? I'd rather have tested in PSK31. Much more efficient than Morse...
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Just what we need - a bunch of slashbots on HF. FP over PSK, Goatse on 14.235... Dogs and Cats, living together, mass hysteria!
de N0YKG.
www.eFax.com are spammers