[geeks] Amateur Radio

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Shannon Hendrix <shannon at widomaker.com>
>Date: 2008/05/20 Tue AM 10:21:09 EDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] Moved to geeks: Cheap Ham radios (was Dayton Hamfest)

>On May 19, 2008, at 18:11 , Lionel Peterson wrote:
>
>> It has to do with speaking to people you don't know, sharing a  
>> common technical interest, and overcoming natural barriers to  
>> connect with other people.
>
>One thing not being mentioned is that the "draw" of HAM radio came  
>about at a time when people were still fairly remote from one another,  
>and radio and other related technology was still primitive.

I remember in the '70s reading about how kids in the "outback" in Australia used radio sets to get "home" schooling instruction (not sure if it was amateur or a variant of 11 meter/CB)...

>The world is much better connected now and "smaller", and there are  
>far easier ways to do the same thing, so much of the draw really is  
>gone now.

Back in the '20s radio was the "Internet" of the day, and I suspect the draw of Amateur radio was similar to the draw of home computers in the late '80s - everyone saw a lot of potentnial and wanted to be a part of it.

Lionel