denidoom's Journal: memories

I left a comment in this Ask Slashdot article:

Do You Still Find Amateur Radio Interesting?
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/25/025233

I've rewritten the here in my journal because it's a strong memory I want to keep in this place.

As a kid in the 70's-80's I would visit my dad in his HAM shack late at night while he talked with people all over the world. He had old 1940's Collins vacuum tube radios that he kept in pristine condition up until 2004 when my parents lost their house to Hurricane Ivan.

I have many fond memories of those times. We moved around quite a bit as my parents worked for the Navy. Every time we moved we knew we were settled in to "home" when dad would put up his tower (I suppose it was a 30' tower you could climb). The HAM shack smelled of metal, dust, and ozone - much like the pilot's shack we shared when taking flying lessons. There's a distinct smell of things that are painted Government Issue gray.

The things I appreciated about HAM radio are probably different than other people. I appreciated there was a formality an etiquette you do not find in Internet communications. There really wasn't anything like "flaming" on the radio; everyone was courteous and so excited to make a contact. I learned about phonetic alphabet just from listening in and use it still this day when I am on the phone and have to read off letters to someone. Mostly, and these are memories of a kid, I loved the wall filled with QSL cards.

I think if I did HAM radio today I would do it just to collect QSL cards. They are beautiful and a tangible "proof" of a contact. There are some things like that on the Internet (like Postsecret I suppose) but there's something cool about getting a acknowledgement that we spoke together and made contact. They would have exotic stamps from other countries and interesting art on the front with the sender's handwriting, often in highly stylized scrawl, on the back.

All my dad's QSL cards are washed away in the lagoon or bay somewhere and I'm saddened by that. As an artist, these are the things I learned from HAM radio.