jhetley: (Default)
jhetley ([personal profile] jhetley) wrote2004-06-05 11:20 am

Aging techies

Went out to the local ham radio get-together this morning, and counted heads. Fewer of them, and grayer. Amateur radio seems to be headed for oblivion. When I first got my license back in the neolithic, I built my own gear -- transmitters, receivers, you name it, soldering iron and pliers and flint nodules and all. I'd need an electron microscope to do the same work today. And if I want to talk to strangers on the other side of the world, I just hop in the internet and post blither like this.

But ham radio takes Real Men. Have to be, to move equipment like my old Hallicrafters SX-28 -- the damn thing must weigh nearly a hundred pounds, WWII veteran. At least it keeps us warm in the long Maine winters.

Real radios glow in the dark.