DaveAndrus.com

I haven’t updated the blog since May. May? Where has the time gone!? Truth is, I just shouldn’t be writing about tech, and I’ll tell you why.

Microsoft-bashing. Meh. Others do it way better, and more consistently than me. It’s not exactly a passion of mine, either. I just like to poke fun at ‘em. Easy targets. Sometimes I even do it in person with the Microsofties or Dumb-bell Dells I meet at standards meetings! It’s just not interesting enough to me to keep writing about–although those latest Microsoft commercials with Bill buying shoes with Seinfeld are a big, tempting target. What a bunch of tools these people are!

No, there are just too many things I should avoid talking about, either because they are too close to my professional life, or because I’m just not motivated enough to write well and consistently about them. Nobody wants to read a blog that doesn’t get updated very often. People lose interest, and I don’t blame ‘em.

There are just so many things out there in tech-land that I just should not comment on publicly these days, given my present position of responsibility with a certain fruit-flavored company. Gee, maybe I should get rid of the “tech” tilted blog and just write about my hobbies or passions. Hmm…what are they? Oh yeah, technology…computer systems…ham radio. Well, I guess maybe that leaves ham radio? Apple doesn’t have much of a market there, but I think that subject might have fairly limited audience appeal (please avoid thinking about Apple/appeal. Unintended, I assure you. Nothing to look at here. Move on.).

There are about 650,000 licensed hams in the US, which is a ratio of about 1 ham in every 500 of the general populace. Certainly not a very large chunk of folks are into this hobby. That’s too bad, really, because to me, ham radio is just the ultimate fun thing to do! I build antennas, and see if they work well or not. I build little radios and put them on the air. I talk through orbiting ham radio-only satellites as they pass overhead. Heck, I’ve even talked to US and Russian astronauts, about half of whom are licensed hams, as they orbit overhead! The Space Station even has a permanent ham radio system installed on it, just for us to use as a relay station–just for fun. And that’s lots of fun!

Oh, by the way, a large percentage of hardcore RF engineers, like me, started out with ham radio as a hobby, and that was waayy before the Internet.

But that doesn’t mean you have to be an engineer to enjoy ham radio. Most, believe it or not, are not engineers or electronics technicians. Quite a few hams have just the barest technical knowledge, but enjoy talking to people in far-away places. Others are more into experimentation or building. Hams have also managed to connect the Internet to the hobby as well. There is also much new activity in software-defined radios, where the “radio” is the barest of hardware, and whose output is fed into a PC’s sound card. You can even send and receive morse code from your keyboard and not know a “dit” from a “dah.”

So, how did I get started in this hobby?

As Bill Cosby said in one of his opening monologues, “I started out as a child…”. I got my first ham license when I was in the 5th grade.

The key moment for me came when a new neighbor moved in about 7 houses down from me, and proceeded to put up a tower with a big beam antenna on it. It looked like the world’s biggest TV antenna. I knew better by then. He was a ham! Not only that, but he also had a really interesting-looking antenna on his Buick Riviera. Wow–he could talk to anyone in the world from his car! How cool was that?! I was fascinated with this turn of events, having already cajoled my parents and grandparents into getting me a shortwave receiver as my “big” gift the preceding Christmas.

Man, I just loved to tune around the shortwave bands and hear all of the interesting beeps, squawks, morse code and voices. It all sounded so…important and urgent. Secret agents used radios to pass important information on to “headquarters” or to the resistance underground! I could listen to the broadcasts from Radio Moscow or Radio Cuba Libré, trying to convince radio-equipped Americans that they were all wrong about the world! Astronauts shared their experiences from space with us via scratchy-sounding radio links! All of this stuff and more was there on the radio for me to pick and choose from.

I had also acquired an old VHF radio from my dad, who pulled it out of the trashcan at the fire station where he worked. I managed to fix it and get it running. Wow, I was listening to live fire calls, just like the newspaper guys were doing! And it all came floating right into my bedroom out of the thin air, with no adults to tell me that I had to share it, like the TV, with my siblings! These were MY events, happening right in front of me, so to speak.

I was most interested in these guys (seemed like they were all males) that could also just talk casually on the radio with each other about virtually anything they thought about! Man, that was cool! How could I do that, too?

One Halloween night, I purposely made sure that my candy route included this neighbor’s house. I don’t remember what my costume was that year, but my girlfriend (yes, she really was!) Vicki was made up as a cat. Good-looking cat, too, as I recall. Anyway, the guy’s wife answers the door, gives us our candy, and I made my move before she could close the door on us. “Uh, is your husband a radio person?” I stammered.

That was the first night that I met Linda Howard and her husband Bob, whose ham radio callsign–WA6DLI–I quickly memorized in case I heard his voice on the air. Bob was surprised and happy to show us his ham radio station. We got the grand tour, including a chance to talk to someone on the radio. Wow, I was in heaven! Vicki, however, never forgave me for the night she got shortchanged on her candy! I think I ended up giving her mine–it was a fair trade.

Bob, who worked in downtown Los Angeles as an engineer for the LA Department of Water and Power, gave me the run of his radio station while he was at work. Even today, I am awestruck that he would perform such a selfless (and trusting!) act as turning over his very expensive radio station to a 10-year-old! And Bob didn’t have just any ham gear. He had THE ULTIMATE STUFF–also known as the Collins S-Line radios. Collins made serious radio gear for all types of government and military systems.

You can see the same radios (including a very similar-looking radio console) in the old Doris Day movie, “The Glass-Bottom Boat.” Arthur Godfrey, one of the co-stars and also a well-known ham, made sure that their radio props were the real thing. Bob had a Collins KWM-2 transceiver, a 30L-1 Linear Amplifier, and all of the cool, matching Collins accessories, all built into a custom-designed console that held them all tilted up just right, facing the operator at the perfect angle! That was an awesome system, and is still prized today, more than 40 years later! Mmm…the smell of all those glowing, hot tubes. Just the faintest hint of old cigarette smoke on them. What? Oh, you had to be there, but for me, that smell reminds me of good times. But I digress…

Bob’s Norwegian-born wife, Linda, was always gracious to me each day as I appeared at her door, asking if I could go sit in front of Bob’s radios again. Linda brought me lemonade and cookies, and I’m sure deserves special sainthood for putting up with a 10-year-old boy in her nice, quiet house every afternoon after school!

In the sometimes-odd vernacular of hams, Bob became my “elmer”–an affectionate term (no relation to the Fudds) denoting someone who helps or mentors another person into the hobby. A few months later, it was Bob who suggested that I might be ready to take THE TEST! I couldn’t believe it! Could I actually qualify for a ham license? Nobody had ever told me that was possible for someone my age! He assured me that it was just fine, and coached me on how I’d have to send and receive morse code at the, um, leisurely pace of 5 words per minute. It seemed like 100 wpm to me, but he assured me I’d do find with just a little practice.

By the way, that was then, and this is now, as they say. There is now no longer any requirement for knowledge of morse code in ham radio licensing. All you need to do is take a 35-question multiple-choice test and you’re done. It’s gotten way, way easier.

The day came. Bob had sent away for the official test from the FCC. It arrived in a manila envelope with very official-looking printing on it, warning of severe criminal penalties if I messed up–I think that’s what it said, anyway. Gulp.

Waiting for the FCC to mail a test is also a relic of the past. Volunteer examiners–other hams–are now empowered to proctor ham tests almost every Saturday in libraries and community centers all around the country. You pay a small fee to reimburse them for postage and photocopying–under $20–then you sit down and take your test. If you fail, come back on another Saturday and try it again–guaranteed they will not smirk or look down on you if you need to make a return trip. They really want you to become one of them!

Anyway, the old Novice License’s twenty-question test was a breeze for me. Simple questions about operating rules and very fundamental technical stuff. With that out of the way, we now faced the morse code test. As I said, it seemed like 100 words per minute to me! To loosen me up, Bob suggested that we just practice for a bit. He knew I could tap out 5 WPM on his telegraph key with no problem, and I did that part first. Sending is easy. Receiving isn’t–at least, it wasn’t for me. He said to just practice copying down what he would send, so that I could “loosen up my brain” or something like that. He send nice, slow, 5 WPM code for several minutes, and I dutifully wrote it all down. No problem–just practicing for the real thing to come.

Finally he stopped and looked at the legal pad I had written everything on. After about 10 seconds, he said, “Well, congratulations! You’ve passed the test!” Huh? How? We hadn’t done the real thing yet, right? He said something like, who says that what you just did wasn’t real? All you had to do was copy one minute of code, and you’ve easily done that here. You’re done! You passed!

Wow! He fooled me into calming down and relaxing. I cruised through the part of the test that I’d most dreaded without ever considering the possibility that I could “pass” the practice part of the test.

That was a very important day for me for several reasons. I became one of the fraternity of hams that day (no, there’s no literal fraternity–no secret handshakes that I know of). I also learned how to trick others into loosening up. I did this exact thing with another young man a couple of decades later. Worked just fine on him, too!