KØHB wrote:

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

Depends on what you mean by "magic"...

I enjoy a good magic show. Penn and Teller are favorites of mine, for a
number of reasons, even though they often show how an illusion is done.

Of course anyone with sense knows that magicians do not defy the laws
of nature. They simply give the illusion of doing so. But what is
important for the enjoyment of magic (or many other theatrical forms)
is to "suspend disbelief" for a time. And to simply enjoy and wonder at
the experience, rather than overanalyze and deconstruct it.

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 cometo
believe in that powerful, intangible force.

Indeed! Been there, done that, many times.

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 throughat
that hour. But then, rising out of the noise like a ghost, 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.

Yup.

Or maybe you really need a particular section or country in a contest.
You've been up and down the bands looking, you've tried CQs, had lots
of QSOs all around, with no dice. Maybe you even heard one or two but
couldn't break the pile. Then, after all but giving up, you come across
the needed section or country and work him on the first buzz with no
trouble at all.

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.

Even more recently than that - look what happened in Salem for much
less.

Consider that up until about 200 years ago, almost all human
communication moved at the speed of a fast horse (overland) or fast
ship (over water). President Andrew Jackson's communications options
were not much different than those of Julius Caesar - except the Romans
had more paved roads for their horses! Sam Morse changed all that.

No doubt they would accuse you of dabbling in magic -- and they'd be right!

As Amateur Radio operators, we work feats of magic every day. Many of ushave
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 ofwhat
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)

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

King? Heck, most of the old religions did not even ascribe the power of
near-instant communication to their gods, let alone their kings.

Another way to say it is that what amateur radio is really all about is
"radio for its own sake". IOW, radio as an end in and of itself, not as
a means to other ends. Sure, there are plenty of times when hams use
amateur radio as a means to an end, (emergency communications, keeping
in touch with friends and family members) and those things are all
good. But I think that for most hams, that
difficult-to-define-magical-something is what keeps us interested.

And it takes many forms, whether it be putting a new rig or antenna on
the air, working a new state or country, or just chatting with another
radio amateur.

Few weeks ago I received word that another Hans, from Great Britain,
was here in the USA and had brought one of his unique QRP homebrew rigs
with him. So we set up a sked and had a nice QSO on 80 meter CW - he
with his 2 watt homebrew-on-a-perfboard rig powered by D cells rolled
up in a section of the New York Times, and me with the Southgate Type
7. He made bunch of QSOs, testament to the gain attached to an unusual
callsign.

Now of course we'd traded many emails before and since. Yet the QSO was
special and the emails weren't. Because it was *radio*....

73 es tnx Hans (both of 'em!) de Jim, N2EY


A sunset is just the refraction of light from the sun in certain ways
due to differences of air density, humidity, dust, etc. Pure physics,
really. Yet many
of us consider them beautiful.