From: on Oct 16, 11:02 am

K0HB wrote:
wrote

Amateur radio isn't magical.


I think belief in magic IS a necessary requirement to really enjoy Amateur
Radio.

Ah, yes. You, Jim, and Mike spend the better part of a month dissing
belief systems and then you come up with this gem. Hi! You guys are
too funny.

"Magic" is for simple minds or for those all tied up in emotions
and cannot comprehend reality beyond human senses.


Of course, you won't see a question concerning magic or metaphysics on
the test you take to obtain your license, but in your heart you will come to
believe in that powerful, intangible force.

I think in the USN it was taught as "PFM."

Pulse-Forming Network? :-) [hardly...]

Hans may have leaned a bit far over a railing and come too close
to the beam of 1 MW search radar in the past...a few synapses
might have been cooked past Well Done stage...


All of us in the hobby have felt its influence at one time or another. Some
night when the band is dead as a doornail you'll be tuning aimlessly, not
expecting to hear a single signal because NOTHING could be coming through at
that hour. But then, rising out of the noise like a ghost,

Prolly scared the bejeesus out of little Billy Beeper.

Not to worry, Captain Code was there to save him... :-)


there will be a faint
call from another stalwart explorer thousands of miles distant. You pounce,
establish contact and both of you marvel at the fact that the conversation is
taking place at all. A few minutes later, however, the signal vanishes as
quickly as it came. Your rational mind will shrug it off as a quirk of
propagation, but that little tingle in your gut will tell you otherwise.

Isn't that how you guys say that God was invented?

A couple of chewed Tums will take care of that little tingle
in the gut.

[next thing you know, these Believers will be saying that
James Clerk Maxwell was a Wizard dabbling in Black Magic...]


If you could travel back in time to, say 500 years to 1505 AD, you'd probably be
burned at the nearest stake for even suggesting that two human beings could
communicate with each other over great distances without a physical connection.
No doubt they would accuse you of dabbling in magic -- and they'd be right!

Hi! Let me scratch a pentagram on the cover of my transceiver.

I'll set the geas so's you won't be disturbed.

[these guys have read too many Harry Potter books...]

However, in 1505 AD, suggesting that an IRON SHIP will FLOAT
would have gotten much the same response. :-) Adding the
fact that a nuclear powered aircraft carrier could do 40+ Knots
AND carry aeroplanes that FLY at high speed would have made
for a jolly large bonfire! Magic? :-)


As Amateur Radio operators, we work feats of magic every day. Many of us have
become jaded about our powers and we tend to dismiss them as commonplace. We
hardly think twice when we use our equipment to sommon the elemental forces of
the universe. But every so often we need to pause and remind ourselves of what
we are really doing. We need to remember the essence of what drew us to our
unusual avocation in the first place: the wonderful magic of wireless
communications.

(With thanks to WB8IMY)

I dunno...wanting to control a free-flight model airplane by radio
got me interested in "radio." The United States Army Signal Corps
pretty well affirmed that by assigning me to a large Army radio
station communicating all over the Pacific ocean. As far as I've
been able to find out, the Signal Corps NEVER used any crystal balls
to communicate long distances...only 1 KW to 40 KW transmitters.

These Believers in Amateur Magic must have crystal balls...

[the late Poul Anderson (no relation) wrote a funny story about an
Army Special Forces unit of Elsewhen using Magic as their special
skill...since no Believer in Magic has any sense of humor, I won't
say much more on it...it is science fiction... :-) ]

73, de Hans, K0HB
--
"Hark! I Have Hurled My Words To The Far Corners Of The Earth! What King Of Old
Could Do Thus?"
--AC6V

"Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
--- Percy Bysshe Shelley (or some old-timer amateur morseman)



"Hans the Magi!" Who would've thought it?

He's either one of the Three Wise Men or just some iggorant wiseguy.


Too bad Dee missed the "sommons" in regard to elemental forces...:-)


I can't wait to read what "Jesus was a cool dude" Mike posted below.

If he doesn't write anything, no doubt Jimmie Noserve will hop
in saying that God ordained morse code as an "elemental force"
for radio. The Magic of Morse! [I digress thaumaturgically]