For Me, Radio = Friends

For Me, Radio = Friends

During the 1970s, when I was a young boy, I watched with great interest as my father got heavily into 11-meter radio. I'm not talking about a couple of CBs in the cars...he had a serious station with a 30ft tower and stacked 3-element yagis. However, it is not the radios nor equipment that I remember the most, it is the friends he made on the air. As he got more heavily into the hobby, we spent more and more time going to visit the friends that he made on the air. For me, that was great fun--it meant more kids for me to play with. After several years on the air, our family had to move out of the area and my dad hung up the mic for good.

Fast-forward about 7 years. I was 14 and my best friend lived over 20 miles out of town. We would see each other at school, but spending time together after school meant coordinating with one or both sets of parents for making the 40-mile round trip. Talking on the phone was very limited because it was a long-distance phone call (remember long distance?). Then I got a brilliant idea. I dug out a couple of my dad's old 11-meter mobile rigs and went about setting up a communication system. The set-up on my end was a store-bought ground plane antenna and a mobile rig. On my friend's end, we had to build--yes build--a ground plane antenna because the only other antenna that was available to us was a mobile whip. I checked out an ARRL handbook from the school library and we built a ground plane out of the mobile whip, mirror mount, and some speaker wire. We got our contraption tuned to a 1:1 SWR and we were on the air!

As soon as I got home, I fired up my rig and gave it a try. I could hear my friend but he could not hear me. He had an elevation advantage over me, and the terrain between us was hilly. Undaunted, I dug around a bit more in my dad's 11-meter junk and found the "black box" that I knew would get the job done. Even turned down to 20 watts, my friend had no trouble hearing me, though I'm not sure anyone on my block could watch TV when we were talking! Once again, radio was facilitating friendship for me. We kept up our 11-meter contacts probably until we were both driving and able to see each other more often.

Fast-forward another 15 years. I was married, had a family, and hadn't thought about radio in forever. I found myself working from home--which is great--but I was beginning to crave additional human contact after spending months of 9-hour workdays at home, alone. A little Internet surfing led me to ham radio. I hadn't thought about ham radio in years. One of my dad's 11-meter buddies had upgraded to a ham license, and I remembered him talking to people all over the world. Ham radio sounded like just the ticket for me. I bought a book, a handy-talkie, and an HF rig and I got busy. I passed the Technician (and General written) exams at the next available licensing session I could find. I was on the air! It only took a few more weeks for me to pass the CW exam and I was on HF.

In the past 6 years, I've made more friends than I had made in my previous 30 years. Once again, I find that radio has facilitated friendship and happiness for me. Ironically, last year my family and I decided to relocate. We only moved 50 miles, so 2-meter communications back to our old home town are usually possible. One of the first things I did after moving was to get up on the roof and install a 2-meter beam so I could talk to my friends. It reminded me of setting up the 11-meter antennas with my friend when I was a teenager. And just like back then, copy can at times be a little rough. But when you've got friends on the other end, it is easy to overlook a little rough copy and QSB!

Max--KD5SFK

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