Foundations of Amateur Radio

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Passion and Politics

Posted: 17 Dec 2016 09:00 AM PST


Foundations of Amateur Radio

Today I want to talk about Politics. I can hear you groan from here, so
hold your horses, stow your tar and feathers and put your pitchfork back in
the barn.

Amateur Radio is a hobby. It's to do with electronics and physics and the
ionosphere and other cool stuff. Some people call Amateur Radio a thousand
hobbies in one and that's a pretty good description.

Underlying Amateur Radio are the people. Those who have spent their time
studying, learning new skills, doing tests, passing exams, as well as
people who are interested bystanders, not necessarily licensed, but drawn
towards the bounty that Amateur Radio as a hobby represents.

An interesting phenomenon among people is their varying level of passion.
Some people are passionate about their dog, others about their children,
others are passionate about cars, or baking, or in our case, passionate
about Amateur Radio.

Passion has been explained to me once as a "big elephant". You sit on its
back and it takes you where you want to go. Gentle nudging makes the
elephant change direction, but if it gets excitable or startled, it'll go
where ever it wants and all you can do is be a passenger and hold on tight.

If you mix passion and Amateur Radio, there are times when that will result
in heated discussion about the merits or pitfalls of a particular radio, an
antenna or some other aspect of the hobby.

If you group people together into radio clubs then those clubs are made of
passionate individuals who come together to promote the objects of their
club. As people group and discuss, opinions differ, goals morph and change
and aims and objectives are blurred.

Before long, you get special interest groups, proponents and opponents,
elections, board meetings, stoushes, mis-management, legal action and the
whole gamut of life.

To complicate matters, Amateur Radio uses a public resource, radio
spectrum. This is generally managed and maintained by a regulator, which in
turn is generally managed by, politicians.

What this means is that as a Radio Amateur you should not be surprised to
learn that politics plays a part just as it does in the rest of society.

I can still hear you muttering from here. My In-Box hasn't yet seen any
derisive emails, but I can picture their arrival.

What does this all mean?

It means that Amateur Radio is not one thing. It never has been and never
will be. For each individual there is a personal path to find and a journey
to travel. For some this means that they'll become the Contester of the
Year, for others it means that they'll invent a new gadget, others will use
Amateur Radio as an excuse to travel the globe and others will use it to be
the big cheese in their club.

Your role is simple.

Remember that this is a Hobby. That it's your hobby and that you have as
much say in it as the next person.

Remember also that this Hobby exists because we've been given access to a
public resource and it's our responsibility as Amateurs to conduct
ourselves in a manner that befits that public trust.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB
This posting includes a media file:
http://podcasts.itmaze.com.au/founda...teur-radio.mp3