In a couple of weeks I am likely going to drag the PRC 320 to a shooting match of sorts for the hell of it.
Ham radio as such is a VERY broad hobby. It's generally associated with nerdy looking guys talking to people overseas and across the country. That's just a part of it.
It's actually the part that I enjoy the most. I do like to DX (DX=Distant Exchange, an old telegrapher term for communication with people over long distances)
A while ago a bunch of inexpensive Chinese 2 meter handy-talkies went on sale for peanuts and many people took one look at them and say "Ham radio! I can talk all over the workd for $20!" only to be disappointed when they discovered that the 2 meter band is basically line of sight.
There are still a lot of these floating around and every once in a while someone asks me to program one for them and they are disappointed because I can't. I have to read the directions, same as everybody else.
Along the same lines when I was shooting service rifle all the time people would ask me questions about obscure calibers and occasionally about rifles I had never seen before and seemed surprised when I knew little or nothing about them.
While I can pick up most rifles with no instruction and virtually all rifles with minimal instruction and use them, I am by no means an expert although I am far more knowledgable than most. Still, there's a lot I don't know about uncommon calibers and firearms. It's the same with ham radio.
My plan at the shooting match is to get a few of the people I know to try and check in with me and give me their home states.
A lot of preppers started getting into ham radio a while back. I presume they thought that if the TEOTWAWKI (The End of the World as we Know it) occurs that they could call up someone to help them hold off the Great Zombie Apocalypse. Some of them got into the hobby after they found out the truth that ham radio does NOT mean you have 24/7 communications with the world.
Actually from a practical standpoint if the entire infrastructure broke down one good use I cauld have for basic HF communications is that I can almost always raise someone in OH, IL, or IIN and get a local weather report. The weather where I live comes from the west and it would give me an idea of what was headed this way.
I actually did get WX reports from these places and while they were not dead on accurate, they gave me a pretty good idea of what was headed this way. For example when someone in IN reported 6 inches of snow, I almost always got snow. It might have been a dusting or it might have been 3 feet but I almost ALWAYS wound up getting snow inside a couple of days.
Of course the people that demand pinpoint accuracy will be disappointed, it's a damned good ball park figure of what's headed this way.
Ham radio IS good for spreading infomation (also disinformation like all double edged swords). A ham net can spread information far and wide and FAST as a group of us proved a while back. We had an operator in NH standing by that was supposed to get a piece of information from an operator in HI that was standing by.
While the operator in NH didn't have direct communication with HI the messaage was relayed by various operators back to him in well under 3 minutes. That's not bad at all!
Militarily (or para militarily) ham radio probably isn't too useful because anyone with a $100 shortwaave set can listen in on communications because it's not encrypted. Because it is illegal to encrypt, I would imagine there are not too many encryption devices out there, I suppose that if f the Great Zombie Apocolypse happened someone would figure something out but but if it ain't happening now, the learning curve would be too fast and the price of said device likely too expensive for the average guy.
Still, it makes sense for prepper types to get licensed and learn to use the equipment because it's another tool in the box. Note I said licensed. That's because unlicensed operation is frowned on by the ham community and any attempt at 'borrowing' or making up a call sign will be outed almost instantly.
Of course a number of HF rigs are squirreled away with their owners figuring that if the balloon goes up they can break them out and run unlicensed. I suppose at this point nobody will really ask a lot of questions about licensing BUT when the balloon goes up is not the time to be fumbling with the manual to figure how to make the damned thing work. The time to do thaat is when you are relaxed and have the time.
Besides, if you don't know the proceedures not too many people will pay you any attention and on top of that you could just be making things worse for everyone else. You don't want to get everyone mad at you.
After all, a lot of preppers send a lot of lead downrange practicing and certainly know how to use their rifles. Yet they won't get licensed to learn another skill.
If the weather is OK I'll show up at the match and go on the air and show anyone that wants to know how things work and I'll explain the licensing proceedures but please don't ask me how to program your Chinese handy-talkies. I simply do not know.
No comments:
Post a Comment