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How amateur radio changed or influenced your life
Sorry, but I never tire of hearing stories about how amateur radio might have changed or influenced someone. I’ll start the thread and then weigh in later but suffice it to say that one thing it did was teach me not to fear heights. Yup, when I was a kid, much to my mother’s distress, my father would send me up the tower to fix this, install that, tighten the bolts, and maybe even to precisely ensure I would never be afraid of heights.
More stories will follow, but for now, how about you?
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4 Replies
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39
My husband died in April of 2022. Throughout our 30 plus years together, I was madly in love with him. If truth be told, I’m still madly in love with him. Suffice it to say that losing him devastated me.
We were not the typical ham radio couple. Since the 60’s, when he was a Boy Scout, he wanted to get his license. Unfortunately for him, life, the universe, and other things got in his way so his plans to become a ham were relegated to the bottom of his priorities.
Me, on the other hand, had been licensed as an extra for years when we first met. I was the one who taught him the difference between reactance and resistance, and who made the decisions about what rig to get and what antennas to put up. He always told me that one of things he found most attractive about me was that I was a ham. Pretty cool, huh?
Anyway, he got his tech, and his general, and had great plans to get his extra – but then he took ill.
I had only been minimally active on the ham bands when the love of my life died. I really hadn’t been “radio active” for a good number of years. My grief left me totally isolated – completely alone. Out of my desperate anguish, I checked into a local ragchew net. And presto-changeo! Like that! I found a whole group of hams who not only walked with me through my grief, but gave me reasons to look forward.
It turns out that many of my local ham group have also lost their spouse. We now have a monthly lunch where we meet. We laugh. We cry. We talk radio stuff and we hug each other. A lot.
I guess you could say that, for me, ham radio has been a life saver,
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114
@ns7x What a loving and touching story. You know, recently, I hear a lot about how amateur radio is great because and for STEM, for EMCOM, for contesting, but less mentioned is how amazing it is as a connective tissue. Whether it be amazingly unique stories such as yours, or how we commune in clubs, or the people we meet on air. My dear friend @W4Doi and I met during a VHF net, so did many of my other current friends. And turn on any regular net and all you hear is people both knowing eachother well, or introducing themselves and being, in the great majority of cases, accepted for who and what they are.
I look forward to more stories of how amateur radio has affected us all.
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27
First Licensed in 2017 I went to a local Hamvention with my boss who was a ham and was met with the question from the future section managers why don’t you enter to win this radio… I went to apply but told him I hadn’t gotten my license yet to which he replied “why don’t you get it and come have fun with us” My boss told him I wasn’t smart enough to get my ticket and when I corrected him he said “I will buy the book for each class you want Ie: tech, general, Extra eg,” Needless to say September (5 months later I was a tech and by February 2018 I was a extra. He lost a bet that cost him 150.00 (he paid my test fees too) after that he tried to control the entry into the hobby but I cut the string and flew the coop and now enjoy Skywarn, Dayton Hamvention with my family and the grandbaby (it will be her 3rd) and we have a bright future in ham radio.
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114
Never underestimate, is what I say. Nice story.
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