I went into my local Radio Shack today to get a stereo plug for a mic connector that I want to build. The lady at The Shack looked at me like I was stupid when I told her what I wanted (1/8″ stereo plug that I could solder my own wires on to). She took me over to the extension cables. At least she was in the right aisle of the store where the plugs would have been in the past. Trying to be helpful, she stood in my way to find this thing herself that she really did not understand. She would have been more helpful if she would have just let me look instead of assuming I was the dumb one in the conversation.

After digging around a while I realized there were very few products for build it yourself projects.

I left with the comment that I would just have to go online and get what I needed and in doing so try to put Radio Shack out of business. She joked that my leaving the store to buy online could, very well, be their demise.

While Radio Shack is probably doing well in their new business, they are no longer a friend to hobbyists who want to build their own equipment. *Sigh*

We went to Big Lagoon State Park. It is only 12 miles from where we live. But once you enter the park it seems like you are way out there.

Monday
We arrived at the campground around 3:00 in the afternoon. That is check-in time and it seemed like a good time to get there. That allowed us to have a good final lunch at home before having to eat my cooking.

We got camp set up and then spent a good amount of time trying to string up the G5RV dipole antenna for the ham radio we took along. After we got it all up in the air I saw a note in one of the camp brochures the next day saying not to tie or hang anything in the trees. Oops.

We did not do any exploring that afternoon/evening since we had to run part way back to town to get some supplies we had forgotten. There is a Wal-Mart about half way between the camp and home, so I had my wife meet us there with some things and we popped in to Wal-Mart for the other items. We then spent an hour or so enjoying ice creams from Sonic before parting ways.

Tuesday
After a restless night’s sleep, we got up early to put the coffee pot to use. Yes, my 10 year old drank his fill of coffee. Good for keeping you warm, not that it was too cold. I think it was 68 when we got up Tuesday morning. Not too cold, but cool enough to justify coffee for the lad.

We hiked for a good long time after a breakfast of eggs and bacon. We returned to the camp for a rest and to read a book. Another hike before a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

In the afternoon I took a nap and we rode bikes and read books until we met up with my Dad who brought us some fishing poles and hamburgers. We ate the burgers and headed down to the seashore to do some fishing. My son caught the first fish. It was a pinfish about 6 inches long. The neighbor fishing near us bought it off of him for $1 for bait. The next 2 we caught we donated to the neighbor. We ended up with about 8 pinfish (which we turned into bait or tossed back) and the final catch was a 5 inch catfish. I must have hooked it while trying to set another nibbler. The catfish was hooked in the eye. Ouch!

Slept better that night. Was also much cooler.

Wednesday
Got up to 64 degree temps. Felt cooler since the wind was blowing. After the standard eggs and bacon we went bike riding for a bit. Camp was packed up in various stages of the morning. We also read for a while. Eventually we got out of there around 1:00.

In the events of the 3 days we cooked s’mores and burned hot dogs. We did some torturous things to marshmallows. Though we did not talk with anyone on the radio, we listened to people from Switzerland, Virgin Islands, Spain and Italy. We had more fun with fire than should be allowed. Probably would have had a whole lot less fun if my wife had been there. My son had fun taking hikes with the camera by himself. I was not too worried that there was a pond that hosted 3 alligators just 100 yards from our tent. Maybe I should have been. But this was a fun time to relax and not worry about the world crashing down around us. So we didn’t let a little thing like the stock market or alligators get us too worked up.

I am not sure what the projected time of arrival is. But we are starting to get elevated winds. Nothing to write home about and not any higher than normal storm winds. We are probably 5 hours away from getting rain from the storm.

The Mrs. and I had a brain storm of an idea today. I won’t tell you about it until the storm is over, just in case it wasn’t as brilliant as we thought. I will take pictures to show you after the adventure is over.

There is a good possibility that we will lose power for some time. If so I get to fire up my ham radio and get to relay information back to the US about the health and welfare of all my friends. That will be fun. I have a nice antenna that I have never taken the time to set up that I will pull out to work with. I pulled my other antenna down yesterday afternoon so that I don’t lose it in the storm.

I will probably get a few more posts up before the storm moves in and knocks me out of commission. If I do lose electricity for any extended period of time, maybe I will be able to get caught up on my reading.

I still need to find the closest Fry’s Electronics. I also need a general computer store. That should be fairly easy to find.

I also have my list of stuff that I want to see and buy.

I am editing the next episode of Missionary Talks right now. It should be up before I go to bed tonight. That is, assuming that I go to bed.

I have to swing by and pick up my driver to the airport at 5:00 in the morning. He is loving that.

Walker Edmiston died in February. I had learned of his death shortly after he had passed away. But, today I heard a great tribute to him and his voice talents by the Adventures in Odyssey crew. Let me encourage you to take 20 minutes and listen to it. Especially if you were familiar with the Tom Riley character.

What I found out in my reading on him and his life was that he was blind since boyhood. I did not see from what age, but some wording I saw made me think he was not born blind. I did not know that he was blind when I listened to the audio tribute. Knowing that makes one of the lines he says in the program very humorous.

Since they no longer podcast the Adventures in Odyssey (I am not sure they ever officially did), I have not listened to it in a while. I don’t know how they have handled his death, or if they have gotten to it yet. He had such a unique voice, I am not sure if they will be able to replace him like they did with Hal Smith.

Just some interesting reading about Walker Edmiston:
IMDB Entry
Article citing his death
An interview he did in 1974
Wikipedia entry on Walker Edmiston
Wikipedia entry on Ed Walker

Yesterday marks the day that the FCC dropped all requirements [PDF] to know any Morse code to obtain an Amateur Radio license (Ham Radio). Though I am disappointed, I cannot say that I am at all surprised. It was just a matter of time.

There are valid arguments on both sides, for and against code requirements for licensing. I will give my take which will sound very wishy washy and will not solve any disputes. But here it is.

Those who oppose code argue that there is no need for it. The likelihood of catching a distress call over code is incredibly slim. This is because there are fewer people who know code today than there were 50 years ago. If you were in a boat that was lost at sea and you had a meager transmitter that could send out a CW signal better than voice, would you know how to do that? Sure you could send SOS because you heard it as a kid on TV, but what would you send after that? The argument goes that it is just not practically necessary to know.

They further argue that code is just one of the many operating modes. Why would the test requirements include code when it does not include testing for other specific modes? They say that the promoters of CW simply want to use code as a litmus test for gaining entrance to the club. If you don’t learn code then you are not worthy to join the ranks. They say that ham radio is dying as a hobby because of the code requirements. Old Timers whine and moan that the hobby is dying out with fewer people involved while the no-coders contend that it is the code that is the barrier to people joining (as if the code is much more difficult, or even impossible, to learn today than it was 10 or 50 years ago).

On the other side of the field are those of us who “earned” our tickets instead of paying a fee and getting a license. They say code is not used as a barrier to keep good people out, rather it is a proof of commitment to the hobby. And commitment to the rules and community is what the ham radio ranks takes pride in.

Morse code at 5 WPM (the highest current requirement until yesterday) can be learned by anyone the pro-coders say. If you can memorize the ABCs and can count, you can learn code at 5 WPM. It is so incredibly slow that there is no need to actually be able to “hear” the code, rather you simply need to be able to count.

My thoughts on both sides. For those who are against the code I would say that it really is not that hard to learn. And it is certainly no harder than it was 50 years ago. Take my wife for example. She learned it simply because I asked her to. Not because she has any great love for contesting and talking to the world. She learned the 5 WPM in two weeks. She then passed her 13 WPM test a couple of months later. This does not take years to learn. It takes a small commitment for a few weeks, at most, to learn the code. If you can’t learn it, it is because you don’t want to. I admit there are people with learning disabilities that may need an exception, but that is not the majority of the whiners out there.

And, yes, it is a barrier to keep just anyone becoming a ham. I am sorry that you have grown up in an educational system that says everyone is equal and no one should be held back because they are not able to perform on the same level as someone else. That whole philosophy is destroying our nation. Where does that stupidity end? I guess when everyone who wants to be an Olympic athlete gets a gold medal simply because they desire one will be the culmination of that philosophy. As it stands today, if you want a gold medal, you need to earn it. Until yesterday, if you want certain privileges in the ham radio spectrum, you had to earn it.

Who cares that it is just one mode? You actually are tested on other modes of operation. They just happen to be the easier modes, therefore you don’t mind. Aren’t there some things you can and cannot say on the air? Do you get tested on that? Well, then you are being tested on phone operation. So stop the argument that testing on a specific mode, CW, is unfair because you are tested on other modes as well.

To those on my side of fence–get over it. I hate hearing people complain that ham radio is going down the tubes and that people don’t want to join today. They don’t want to join because they don’t want to constantly hear you tell them how unworthy they are. We really don’t care that you had to sit in front of an FCC examiner and build a transmitter from the lint in your pockets. Now if you want to tell us that story because it is a great story, by all means, I would love to hear it. But if you are using that to say that I am unworthy and I am not a “real” ham, then go tell someone else. I am just not interested.

Yes, the numbers of participants in ham radio is falling. I believe it has little to do with the code requirements. We will see an initial insurgence of new hams, but that will wear off. I think there are two main contributers to the lack of interest in ham radio today.

One is that there are just way too many other distractions. My son and I were talking about the great chess players in the world. We made an observation. Most of them come from countries that do not have access to 200 TV channels, Internet broadband in every home that wants it, and, probably the most important, they do not even have reliable electricity. If you want good entertainment, you need to create it with things you can’t plug in. I may be terribly wrong on this, but chess in the US is far inferior to the great place the game holds in many other nations. That is not meant to slight the great US players, but that, in general, chess does not have the popularity it has in many places.

Ham radio and chess in the US are not dissimilar. Ham radio suffers from the fact that there are simply too many distractions.

The second barrier has to do with people. Take an honest look at your ham radio club. If you did not already know the folks involved and they were not already your friends, would you want to join them? The most vocal of them are the old guys making comments about how much they miss the golden days of radio. Of course they are complaining to the newbies who are still starry eyed about having earned their first ticket.

This does not mark the end of the Amateur Radio service. It is just a step. It can be a step to greater days, or a step to the grave. It depends, in large part, on the community as to which way they want to go. There is certainly a place to fight for the standards of Ham Radio. But that fight is not with the new Tech that just got licensed. That fight is with the lawmakers and the movers and shakers within the FCC and the ARRL. Beating up the kid with the new ticket does far more harm than it does good.

Stop sulking about the “glory days” and make today the best day in the Ham Radio service.

73 de KU4LL

I wrote an amateur radio operator in an adjoining state to see if he could put me in contact with someone here. I wrote him because he had a nice, current looking, web page dedicated to radio. No reply after 6 days. I finally found the ARRL equivalent in México which is FMRE. They have a listing of members at their site. There were several in my state of Yucatán. I did a QRZ lookup on them and found several in my part of town. I have now written to the Yucatán division of FMRE, the Mérida chapter of FMRE and 3 individual FMRE members. Not a single reply.

If you have an email address posted on the web somewhere, would you do the world a favor and update it? I have no idea if these are out of date email addresses, or if my emails are getting caught by spam filters, or if no one wants to touch a foreigner with a ten foot pole, but they are not answering. I am not even asking for a sponser. I am just trying to get information as to where the COFETEL office is so that I can start the official paperwork. It is necessary to contact someone individually because COFETEL’s website is broken. The main page comes up fine, but if you try and burrow in to actually get any information, their websever is serving up junk.