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04 Jun 2022 1145 - Idle Thoughts On Amateur Radio

As I mentioned on the ham home page, I've paid some attention to amateur radio and shortwave listening throughout most of my life, starting in the 1970's. Things have changed - a lot. In fact, it's really pretty amazing how much they've changed. The evolution of electronics tech has completely revolutionized the field, just as it has in so many other areas. Back then radios were almost completely analog contraptions.

In college I ran across the book pictured on the left. Not a digital bit in sight. All about tank circuits, filters, transistor amplifiers, oscillators, and so on. I still have my copy on my The real deal. At home I listened to the BBC on 5975 kHz, Voice of America, Radio Moscow, and many others. The SWL bands were alive with traffic. It seemed easy to find signals of almost every imaginable type. I had a lot of fun.

In more recent years, I've noticed that I hear far less activity on the bands. It's possible that I'm just being misled - maybe modern tech produces a lot more interference, and I haven't really "done a good listen." This is something I'll have to sort through soon. I still have the Kenwood R5000 receiver I bought way back then, and it works fine. But it was made at a much earlier time; maybe it just wasn't designed to handle types of interference that have come along more recently.

Along with this advancing technology, it seems like we as a culture have just become less and less interested in technology. It's ironic - we have gadgets that let us do more than ever before, and yet we seem to take them more and more for granted. There even seems to be a disdain for that kind of knowledge - as though it's somehow "unworthy." It's the stuff of "geeks" and "nerds." Well, I have a thirst to understand how things work, and I want to interact with other people who share that thirst. Maybe that's part of what I hope to find by wading back into this hobby.

So, I will explore. And I'll post here about the discoveries and new knowledge that come from that exploration. Make I'll make some like-minded new friends along the way.