I'LL NEVER DO THAT...

How many times have you said, “I’ll never do that… I have absolutely NO interest in that… I just don’t understand why anyone would do that… Those people need to get a life…”?

I have said those very things more times than I care to admit. And, as I have grown older – I may have to get older, but I don’t have to mature – some of the very things that I said I would never do, I have ended up not only doing, but enjoying it as well. So it has been with Amateur Radio.

Over the years, I have known a few Hams. Some were very good friends. But, to be completely honest, I just didn’t get it. I understood to some extent what they did; I just didn’t understand why.

For those who care to know what happened… it began with a book.

I have always had a bit of interest in a self-reliant lifestyle. Back in the 1970’s, when the price of electricity spiked – I believe in was in the winter of ’77 – I was making $165 / week and I had a monthly electric bill of $368!!! That was the genesis moment… I began to get “off the grid”. Growing up in the farming communities of north central Indiana had instilled in me the knowledge of how to grow stuff and to “can and freeze” the fruit of the land. We converted our “total electric” home to 100% wood heat, got a subscription to “Mother Earth News” and began making changes. However, at that time, I had no need for a self-reliant form of distance communication; for, everyone that I needed to talk to lived within a couple of miles. We purchased CB radios. If the phone quit working, it was no big deal. Oh, we looked into Amateur Radio, but you had to know Code… and there was NO way I was going to mess with that.

As the years / decades passed… I became a Grandpa… with 4 of the most wonderful grandkids in the world. HERE WAS THE FIRST STEP toward my interest in Amateur Radio. My grandkids live 800 miles away.

THE SECOND STEP was a re-awakening of the need for personal self-reliance brought about by the knowledge of just how fragile and interdependent the national infrastructure had become. If one little piece goes down… the potential for the house of cards to collapse was becoming more and more obvious.

THE THIRD STEP was a very severe ice storm in southern Missouri that resulted in the call up of the Missouri National Guard and a temporary blockade of the region in which my kids live. Power was out… phone service was sporadic… and Grandpa panicked. There and then I knew I had to figure out a way to be able to communicate with my kids “when all else failed”.

The FOURTH step came coincidentally about the same time as the Third Step; I was reading the book “Patriots” by James Rawles. “Patriots” is the story of survival after a massive economic collapse. In the story, the main characters tell of hearing about what was happening only by means of listening to ham operators on a short wave radio.

The pieces of the puzzle finally fell into place… and the mission was on. I would need a license first. The rest is now history and here I am 14 months after I got my Technician license – now with a General license – writing my first post for my Amateur Radio Blog.

One must be very careful saying, “I would never do that…”.