Andrea's Answers...
to the question 'Why are you taking (did you get) your HAM License?'
Short
I like learning new things
I like knowing how stuff works
I have no other use for the LOG button on my calculator
Medium
Ever since I got the shop manual for my first motorcycle, while flipping through the pages I came across the fold-out section that shows the wiring diagram, I've wanted to be able to read that page!
I've tried several times to understand electricity - in science class in high school and university, in welding school and college computer courses, and I'm still trying to figure it out. Maybe I'll manage to grasp electrical concepts more thoroughly by studying radio.
I'm interested in the history of technology - the development of the internal combustion engine was my first area of interest, but I've discovered a fascination for early radio that may rival my love affair with the carburetor.
Long
In the spring of 2011 I moved from Ontario Canada to BC, to beautiful Salt Spring Island. Keen to get involved in my new community, I attended an Emergency Preparedness meeting of my local neighborhood 'POD'. During the course of the meeting, and in the process of creating an inventory of local skills in our community, we were asked who had first aid qualifications. I reluctantly raised my hand, and glancing about, I noticed mine was the sole and only limb aloft - none of my neighbors had first aid training.
I had a brief but very vivid mental image of a post-disaster world in which I was cast as Florence Nightingale playing nurse to the entire neighborhood lying lined up across the floor in neat rows, and all suffering from the compound fractures that used to make me queasy in the first-aid training videos.
I have never enjoyed first aid training, although I did it every year for many years while working as a motorcycle rider training instructor in Ontario. The only thing I dislike more than first aid training is actually performing first aid on an injured person.
So considering my distaste for first aid, and the cold sweat I'd been left with after my momentary mental image, the opportunity to provide some alternative service to my community was immediately appealing.
So when the Emergency Program co-ordinator mentioned that the local HAM Club was offering a license course, I saw my opportunity to escape from my Florence Nightingale vision. Without the slightest knowledge of how much was involved in the radio license course, it seemed like a golden opportunity, in contrast to the imagined alternative.
So while my initial interest in amateur radio was related to emergency communications, I confess I was equally motivated by first-aid-avoidance. Not very noble of me.
For those of you curious enough to have plowed through this much of an explanation, I can probably assume you've got your HAM license too, so you've probably got a pretty good idea of how much I would have to learn about to get my license, and you must be wondering at what point in the process it dawned on me this was a heck of a lot to know just to avoid splinting a few broken bones. Well, yes, I did work that out on my own... but by then I was captivated by the idea of learning to read a circuit diagram, and understanding electricity better, and so I guess I was hooked then.
Fortunately I've discovered there are quite a few doctors and nurses in my neighborhood, so first aid, if ever needed, will be top quality, and there aren't any other licensed radio operators in my POD, so it has all worked out quite well. My conscience won't plague me too much about my first-aid cowardice, and I've discovered a fascinating new pastime in the process. Sometimes it pays to be cowardly.
Thanks for visiting... hope to meet you on the air! 73
~ Andrea VA7ALG
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