[CW] Thank you, Zenith Radio Corporation - it's been fun

Sun Aug 9 16:45:00 EDT 2015

Hello Lahra and others,

Trying to bring this back to where I was trying to focus.

When I was on ship some of the R/O's (radio officers) were "strange" and I
thought so too after hearing about them.  Only dressing in white, with
white socks and white gloves on when on deck.  Most thought it was because
we listened to "dit dit dah dah" all day.  (Maybe so.)

But I have found that for some reason - and not just CW operators - but
radio people in general often have a "flighty" mentality - I don't mean
that they're nuts but they seem to have their heads in the sky like an
antenna but they respond to the regular world.

I really don't know how to say it, but I have noticed it for a long time.

I don't think that this happened to wire telegraphers but even they talked
about "being attuned to the wires" - which is something quite different.

Ever since the birth of radio there have been mention that radio operators
- or at least some of them - had an ability to sense far away things.

It is mentioned in "Nymph and the Lamp" a book about early wireless on
Sable Island (Marina in the fictional book).
http://qsl.net/n1ea/Raddall_All_Exerpts.pdf

Anyone care to comment on this in light of Charles Ring's comments on
Asperger's syndrome and CW operators - or independently?

I was a premature birth and my nervous system didn't develop and physicians
thought I'd never walk, talk, etc., but I did.  So I am a bit flighty but
doctors say it isn't a mental deficiency because I "return to Earth" when
asked a question but I'm apt to go on tangents that I find interesting even
if everyone else does not.

So that "other place--ness" was prior to radio or CW for me - but all the
same, I see many more people like me in the CW portion of the convention
hall.

I have also found that people whom Christians say are "born of the spirit"
find it much easier to understand me than people devoid of this quality.  I
am a Christian as well and I understand what they are speaking about.

73
DR

On Sun, Aug 9, 2015 at 4:16 PM, Lahra Svare - KT9X <kt9x at kt9x.com> wrote:

> I love this email, Hans, SO MUCH!
> It's everything that's good and wonderful about radio and life.
>
> I do think that both you and N1EA are right.  I think hams ARE special,
> not all of us, but most of us - but in no way are we, or ANY ONE OF US
> on this planet, any better than any of our "fellow travelers", as you
> put it (and I do love that phrase.)  So, my run-on-sentences aside, I
> think it's totally possible for you BOTH to have it right and an
> amalgamation of both your thoughts is most likely.
>
> Your fellow traveler,
>
> Lahra, KT9X
> An extraordinarily humble ham & exhausted Doodlebug mom
>
> On Sun, 2015-08-09 at 18:19 +0000, Radio K0HB wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >    “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
> >                      magic.”  --- Arthur C Clarke
> >
> >
> >
> >                I’ve spent the bulk of my adult life involved in things
> > which can generally be termed “technology”, and for fifty-odd years
> > I’ve played in a “geeky” hobby called ham radio.
> >
> > Growing up in the 1940’s and 1950’s on a small rural farm not even
> > blessed with electric lights or a telephone (let alone a refrigerator
> > or a television set ) does not seem a likely incubator for a lifelong
> > vocation and avocation in electronics, radio, and telecommunications.
> > So how did that transpire?
> >
> > It was all the result of a stew made up of a mix of adolescent
> > boredom,  curiosity, the romance of “far away places”, and an old
> > six-volt Zenith radio.
> >
> > In our “front room” (“living rooms” were for town people) on a
> > convenient table next to Dad’s chair stood a large Zenith radio set .
> > Everything on a farm serves some purpose, and this set served to
> > provide the daily 5PM news and weather report from WDAY in Fargo.  It
> > wasn’t used a lot for “entertainment”, with the exception of the
> > Thursday evening weekly episode of “Dragnet” to which Dad was
> > addicted.  Beyond that, the radio stood idle.
> >
> > Now besides the usual AM broadcast band, the old Zenith had 3 or 4
> > additional “short wave” bands.  Despite a long wire antenna which
> > stretched from the house to the top of the haybarn, those short wave
> > bands were the home mostly of static and very weak foreign sounding
> > stations.
> >
> > With one exception.  On dark quiet winter evenings the “4-6 Megacycle”
> > shortwave band would sometimes contain a lot of squeaky/squawky morse
> > code signals.  I knew that our mail carrier was something called a
> > “ham radioman” so I asked him about those signals.  He said that they
> > were probably messages being sent back and forth from ships at sea.
> >
> > To a preteen kid on an isolated farm in the middle of the great
> > plains, he might as well have told me that they were messages between
> > Venus and Mars!   I was determined to learn Morse so that I could
> > eavesdrop on the secrets that they were exchanging.
> >
> > Turns out that those “secret messages” were mostly about mundane
> > things like position reports, weather reports, and expected arrival
> > times, but thus began my love of the magic of radio.
> >
> > Now, having said all of that, I need to take exception to the notion
> > advanced by N1EA in another thread that ".... most CW operators to be
> > exceptional people and of a greater quality than the "others"".  Hams,
> > CW operators or not, are just another group of hobbyists, no more, no
> > less, just like stamp collectors, piccolo players, mountain climbers,
> > flower growers, and X-Box manipulators.  Other talents, other
> > interests.  We CW operators are not some super-smart cultish group
> > with a secret code, and knowing how to send and receive those beeps is
> > a talent easily gained by most anyone with a little interest.    And
> > while some licensees might well be autistic, I expect that is a
> > "dubious blessing" shared in equal percentage with the rest of the
> > population, which Mr. Ring calls "others" and  "the outside world".
> > In fact, we are no better as a group, and no worse as a group, than
> > all of our fellow travelers on this little blue dot called “Earth".
> >
> > Life is a bright window open very briefly between two long dark
> > eternities.  It’s far too short to isolate yourself as somehow
> > "special" as compared to the rest of humanity who share your time in
> > this short window.
> >
> > 73, de Hans, K0HB
> > --
> > "Just a boy and his radio"™
> > --
> > Proud Member of:
> > . ARRL - http://www.arrl.org
> > . RSGB - http://www.rsgb.org
> > . A1 Operators - http://www.arrl.org/a-1-op
> > . Minnesota Wireless contesters - http://www.W0AA.org
> > . Arizona Outlaws contesters - http://www.arizonaoutlaws.net
> > . Twin City DX Assn - http://www.tcdxa.org
> > . Minnesota Amateur Radio Technical Society - http://www.mn-arts.org/
> > . Lake Vermilion DX Assn - http://www.lvdxa.org
> > . Royal Naval Amateur Radio Society - http://www.rnars.org.uk/
> > . SOC - http://www.qsl.net/soc
> > . CW Operators Club – http://www.cwops.org
> > . SKCC - http://www.skccgroup.com/
> > --
> >
> > ______________________________________________________________
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> > =30=
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>
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