AMATEUR RADIO
(Posted 2007-06-25 14:19:59 by ArchPaladin)

So this past weekend was Field Day for ham radio operators in NH (and I
think everywhere else too).  Field Day is more of a whole weekend event
rather than a day.  On the starting Friday, local hams will gather in a
prearranged location, set up antennas and power generators, and for 24
hours will try to connect with as many other radio groups in the world as
possible.  The idea behind the event is to keep skills up to date, as well
as be a kind of emergency response training.

Radio is not one of those technologies that I've had much experience with,
even though it's so fundamental to modern electronic communications.  Over
the past week I've been looking over a lot of basic radio information,
which is where I came upon the news about Field Day.  Visiting the Field
Day event itself was rather interesting.  There were about seven tents in
the middle of a community park in Merrimack surrounding two antennas about
30 feet tall.  In the tents were a bunch of hams trying to communicate out
to anyone they could.  As a whole the operation was rather unimpressive,
though I understand that those who showed up were only a small part of the
entire state's collective group of hams participating in the event.  The
group I was visiting was apparently trying to rough it as much as possible
during the actual event's operation.

After having gone to visit Field Day during its operation this past
weekend, I have decided that it would be a good idea to go and get an
amateur radio license.  I'm not exactly sure why it's a good idea or
something that I should do - it feels more like an instinctual gut type of
thing rather than a thought out decision.  Learning the tech would
certainly be useful, and it's always good to have another means of
communication if some form of emergency did actually occur, but I can't
quite say what I would do with the tech or the license once I got it. 
Curiosity or experimentation, perhaps, or something to fiddle with when I
don't feel like doing anything else.  I think that I need more time with
the tech itself to see just what the applications are, and perhaps thresh
out why I have this compulsion.

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