800 reflections on a hobby

Foundations of Amateur Radio

On the 15th of May, 2011, my amateur license still wet, I started documenting my experience with my newly adopted hobby. Now, sixteen years and 800 episodes later, I'm still at it. In reading my initial words from all those years ago, it strikes me that the impetus for that adventure is still with me today.

In the intervening years much has changed and evolved. Some less so.

First some history.

I started this documentation process as a response to a new amateur who bemoaned the power limits of their license. At the time, it wasn't an isolated event, just the final straw. Regular disparaging and derogatory comment was levelled at this "toy" Foundation license, the one I'd just obtained and the one I was exploring.

As it happened, I made an observation about this whilst volunteering to help with the production of the local amateur radio news. Ever keen on more content, I was encouraged to voice my concerns into a microphone and my journey began with something I whimsically called "What use is an F-call?", F-call being the colloquialism for the Foundation call, the introductory license in Australia. Recording done, I transcribed my words and the first episode was committed to disk.

Since then I've written all episodes, then recorded and edited them. For just over four years, 206 episodes, I shared my experience and learned as I discovered more things to do and play with. Audience numbers were growing and I started receiving emails from listeners around the world. I renamed my efforts into "Foundations of Amateur Radio", still a nod to my Foundation license origins, but only if you were in the know. The content was the same, with one slight difference, I didn't assume that the listener was based in Australia, mind you, every now and then, I get an email asking about some word I used, but I think that's half the fun.

Given that all this is being done manually, over the years I've made some errors with track numbering in my audio files, so it took me some time to work out what the actual episode number for today's effort is. I'm in the process of renumbering all of them, so it's consistent, but that's fraught, since all of my contributions have been archived all over the place, including in the Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications, the DLARC, so I have some things to figure out. Suggestions welcome.

Over the years much of my amateur radio activity has been triggered by the need to write a new article before my self-imposed deadline. While that sounds like it's backwards for a person claiming to document their journey, it's given me a framework to keep exploring, asking, learning, trying and attempting to explain and encourage.

As a consequence, I get the opportunity to talk to nascent amateurs during their course and one thing I mention is the sheer volume of activities associated with this hobby. Sparked by something I've noticed new amateurs appear to experience regularly, around two years or so into the hobby, they get to the point of boredom, "What else is there to do?", they ask. I point out that I too hold a Foundation license and based on my experience, I've yet to find an end of things to try and experiment with.

Deadlines and Yak shaving aside, my amateur experience has not been without its testing times. Several instances of bullying behaviour occurred over the years which are not fun to experience or witness. I've seen amateurs leave the hobby because of it and if you're ever the target of such behaviour, reach out, [email protected] is my address. I can't fix things, but I can listen.

One thing to observe about bullying behaviour is that it's often intense and confrontational. It's easy to forget that the vast majority of radio amateurs are lovely people who share your particular interest in all things RF to greater and lesser degree. In other words, don't let it define you if you're in the middle of this.

It does make me want to make mention that there are still amateurs around who think that racism and misogyny are accepted f