RADIO SILENCE
(Posted 2008-02-25 23:56:44 by ArchPaladin)

I've had my amateur radio license for about 4-5 months now (I could pull
out the license and get the exact amount of time, but I'm feeling rather
lazy.)

During this time I have transmitted very little, and had about four
conversations in total.  Partly this is because I found out that the
location of my house is shielded very well from the local repeater, and
thus I can't talk to people from home even if I wanted to.  Add to this
that I only have about a 5 minute commute, and that all other times when
I'm on the road it's usually later in the evening (when no one is
listening), and having few conversations starts to make sense.

However, there is another reason - one that I've just discovered recently. 
The reason is that I can't see the faces of people I talk to.  Since I
can't see their faces, I don't know how they are reacting - I don't get any
body language cues to tell me how to respond to them.  Now this is true of
email and IM too, but with those mediums I can either take my time and
structure my language carefully, or I know the person I'm speaking to, or
I'm answering a question and thus have something of a conversational
advantage.  But for radio, I have none of those options.  Everything
reduces down to the ability to pick up the transmitter, say "hello", and
start a conversation with a stranger.

I've found this skill to be harder than it appears.

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