"Hans Kohb" wrote in message
news:23340ef8c0f36832979d5f2d70c241e4.128005@mygat e.mailgate.org...
"Kim W5TIT" wrote


When I was drawn to and got my ticket, you know what the greatest relief
was? Being able to turn a radio on and not hear all that hissing,
heterodyning, etc.!!! FM is great and that is what I like most about
ham
radio. HF sucks for all the noise.


Well, I feel exactly the opposite. To me, FM is boring, but hidden in
all that noise and hissing on HF are the reasons I love ham radio.
Reasons like John, 9M2GV, an expat Brit running a rubber plantation
overlooking the Mallacca Straits. Reasons like Sparky, W3UBM/MM making
the Pacific runs on the rusty old SS Manderson Victory. Reasons
like working K0IR (as VK0IR) on three modes and five bands from
Heard Island, almost at the antipode on the low side of the
freckles-del-Sol. In other words, picking out an almost ghostly
signal from the molecular noise of the universe and finding a
friend, a kindred soul playing exhuberantly in the ether. FM sucks
for all the silence.

YMMV.

73, de Hans, K0HB
Grand Exhalted Liberator of the Electric Smoke



You definitely have a point with the exhilaration of a long-distance
contact--especially if they are willing to slow down long enough to get into
a ragchew! But, these days--for someone like me anyway--the "contact" can
be had over the internet. If we're talking pleasure contacts--those where
we take some time to "get to know" someone--internet definitely takes the
upper hand for me. If we're talking necessity radio--that part where
communication necessity comes into play--ham radio has it hands down.

Kim W5TIT