Ramblings on why Ham Radio Operators, "Get IT wrong"...

That is when we try and sell ourselves to the S&P community!

First off, let me offer up this disclaimer. I am a Ham Radio operator and I, myself, am guilty of some of the following things. This may ruffle some feathers, but it is my hope that we as Hams, don't try and sell the hobby, but instead sell the reason and capabilities to those in the S&P mindset.

Second, let me make it VERY CLEAR, I admire and respect the hams that provide public service to emergency organizations. My hats off to you and keep up the good work. This is in no way disrespectful of what you do...

OK, so why do ham radio operators get it wrong, when trying to encourage others to join our hobby so those of the like mind can be prepared???

It is in my opinion, that we sell it as an expensive hobby (sometimes), one where we will be stuck in some shelter for days on end providing communications, to talk to another human being on the other side of the world for no other reason than to make a friend. I can think of many more, but these always get mentioned!

When you extoll the many wonders of ham radio to someone new, you know you lost them when you say," I worked a JG1 call last night on LSB on 40 meters, running 5w from my FT-817 into a G5RV @ 40' signal was 5 by 9, ain't that cool???" as their eyes glaze over and quickly try and change the conversation!

The S&P (Survival & Preparedness) person that may be interested into learning about ham radio, does not care about what you do with it, but rather... WHAT IT CAN DO FOR THEM!!!

For example, you may have headed down to New Orleans with all your ham gear in tow and VOLUNTEERED a MONTH of your time to man a shelter so they would have a link to the outside world since all the normal means of comms were down, but to the average prepper, that does not sound like something he may want to do.

However, mentioning that sometimes the power fails, telephones are down, cable out and cell phones are a NO GO, but with ham radio you were able to talk into or out of those areas that not longer had any communications infrastructure... now that sounds pretty cool!

I don't think, in our hobby, that we sell ourselves very well in the S&P part. Telling folks that I and several other hams spent a week on a ghost town off of the Outer Banks of NC operating ham radio on solar and generator power for a week is much more interesting than talking about the latest contact we made the other night in Europe after supper.

Not to say there is not a place and time for such things, but it is not usually the 'HOOK' that make the non ham, wish to become part of our hobby.

S&Pers want to know WHY they should get licensed, how to use it WTSHTF/TEOTWAWKI, what are the benefits and so on. It is our job as hams to get those folks interested in ham radio. Maybe some of the S&P hams we recruit will go on to be a world class DXer, head of the county or state ARES/RACES, or maybe ham radio will be nothing more than a vital link to those they wish to communicate with when all other methods are not viable. Either way, it is a win for all hams, and a benefit to anyone that knows how to use a ham radio when the chips are down!

I have helped recruit many S&P minded folks into ham radio, often buying the study manual and telling them to 'pass it on' once they got licensed. Once they got a taste of what ham radio could many became involved in ARES/RACES, MARS, SKYWARN, and/or other emergency organizations. Some just wanted to capability to talk around town on repeaters and with a licensed spouse used them to communicate around the homestead.

I will be coming up with some ideas on how to use ham radios WTSHTF in the next week or so, to hopefully inspire folks to 'think outside the box' when it comes to ham radio and not use the 'old marketing' techniques that have been in place for so long.

Like I said, I mean no disrespect to any ham radio operator who volunteers their time for using their ham radio to provide comms, I just want us to think about how it sounds when we describe our hobby to others.

I mean come on... we have to compete against iPhones and computers that can do MANY of the things that ham radio can do (although hams were doing similar things years before the technology was perfected, and in many cases were the folks who came up with the ideas that inspired many communication technologies) as long as EVERYTHING is working right!

This should be an easy sell to those of the S&P mindset, so lets explain how it will benefit the user in the long run... Once they get their taste of what ham radio can do, THEN they will find out about the hobby and service aspects of it.

That may be why I think this way, for I never came from it from the 'ham radio is a cool hobby', but rather, ' ham radio is a vital skill for me as prepper' mindset. Once I played around with my new skill, I found out the best way to increase my skills was to learn the many different ways to send a message across town or around the world.

I hope that we hams of the S&P mindset, will stop and take a look at how we sell ham radio to folks, and quit trying to talk about the hobby and talk about it as a preparedness skill. We also need to do a better job in explaining HOW you can use this skill in your preparedness plan as a prepper and NOT just a ham radio operator. Just saying...

Thanks for reading and 73.

Later,
ZA

Ramblings on the movie "Pandorum"...

Howdy Folks,

The wife and I were looking for a flick to watch last night on PPV (pay per view) and came across Pandorum which was a very interesting sci-fi movie.

I was very impressed with the technology in the movie, mainly the emergency power!

In one scene there is no power for a computer station and it seems the engineers foresaw the need for backup power. With a few cranks of a wheel the computer station comes to life.

In another scene a crew member locates the weapon locker which has non-lethal riot weapons. The weapons mount on your wrist and shoot out a pulse. To power the weapon, you must first pump it up a few times to generate enough power.

In many scenes the pumping up of the wrist weapon replaced the racking of the slide on a semi-auto when trouble was near so that Hollywood cliche was still in action.

The movie, IMHO was pretty decent, but what impressed me was that emergency powered equipment!

I sure wish I had some of that power generation technology here on the farm right now!!!

Later,
ZA

Ramblings on a walk in the woods with my 1.4 50mm lens...

Howdy Folks,

Man this snow here in NC is getting OLD. It has helped us get out of this drought we have been in and has been pretty to look at. It seems here lately though, I am always working in it when the flakes are falling!

Well being I had the day off, I decided to treat myself to a little photo walk around the farm and see if I could catch anything with the camera that looked interesting. It was my first attempt at only using my Canon 1.4 50 mm lens. I usually always take along the lens that came with my Canon DSLR, a 18-55mm which IMHO is a pretty good lens. However with the fixed focal length 1.4 50mm I had to use my 'walk zoom' to either get closer or farther away to frame the pic.

I also wanted to shoot with a shallow depth of field which keeps a small area in focus, but blurs out the background. I am tickled with how these came out but I know they need some work as I am still in the learning phase.



This is a old sprayer that my Grandpa used to spray for those pesky boll weevils in his cotton fields in the 40's and 50's. It is long forgotten and is disappearing under the vines a little more each year. I love the blurring out of the background on this one!



I really was pleased with the way these turned out, but I plan on experimenting with this a little more. The snow was melting on the North side of this spring house. I wish I could have been on the South side to try and catch some light in the water drop as it fell. With the way it has been snowing, I should get my chance real soon! LOL Needs some work, but wow. I even caught a few in mid air that look good. An ordinary drop of water, just for a fraction of a second, is more beautiful than a diamond IMHO!



A old sign telling one not to trespass. I needed better lighting and the image is not as crisp as I would like, but I dig the background! No worries, I will get another chance as the whole homestead is my laboratory!



One of my faithful photography assistants who makes sure a deer doesn't come up behind me and attack me with antlers! Give credit where credit is due!



I have a walking trail around the homestead, and for as long as I can remember this tree has been hollow in the center since I was a wee lad. I am amazed that it has not fallen down. It seems to me it has not grown much either, but every time I pass it, it seems like an old friend that I am happy to see. With the dab of snow left on the top of the hole, it looks like a cozy place for a critter to sleep away the cold days of winter.

Well that is it for now folks, hopefully I didn't bore you non photo geeks too much, but I figured I would calm down and relax after my Ramblings on 2012 entry. Thanks for reading, and thanks for ya'll new followers on the blog. I appreciate all of you!

Later,
ZA

Ramblings on the Mayan Calendar and TEOTWAWKI

Howdy Folks,

I remember back in the 80's I was excited to acquire a Casio Databank watch. While reading the directions I found out the electronic calendar would show the correct day of the week, date and month until the year 2024.

At the time I was so in love with that watch, I was sure that I would keep it till 2024! After a couple of years, things break and after the strap broke I was on the look out for a new watch...

So what would happen if society collapsed resulting in the majority of the knowledge we have today being lost, (let's say around 1990)?

After a couple decades society is slowly piecing itself back together... many strange artifacts are recovered. One of the artifacts is a Casio Databank watch. With a little tinkering and scavenging the curator of the "Old World Museum" manages to get the Casio working again!

The curator is very excited begins pushing buttons and after awhile figures out that the calendar on the Casio will not go past the year 2024! He thinks nothing of it but when he mentions it to the ruling council, the elders, who are very superstitious take it as a sign.

The elders interpret the sign as the world will end in 2024! For why would such a technologically advanced society of the old world create such a wonderful device and not have the date go beyond 2024 if the world was not going to end then??? I mean what else could it mean other than THAT??????????

Dear readers, do you not think that just maybe the Mayans created their calendars back in the old days and figured they would make it last until the year 2012 which was the end of some great cosmic cycle??? Maybe they thought they had plenty of time to make the "NEXT ONE"??? I mean there is a bunch of other things to do in a 5124 year calendar other than worrying about making the NEXT calendar!!!

The Spanish came to Central America, changed civilizations, had offspring with the natives, destroyed their 'weird religions' and converted them to Catholicism thus destroying the Mayan culture and religion. So maybe the people who used to be the Mayans, don't really give a crap about making calendars anymore and instead give us more valuable items like Tequila, Fajitas and Hot Stuff!!!

Maybe we have the Spanish Conquistadors and their quest for gold to blame for this 2012 hysteria these days???

Dang Cortes, you could have at least let them make another calendar!!!

Shoot, being a 5124 year calendar you could flip the thing to zero year or whatever and reuse it!!!

I mean Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull made more sense than "the world is ending in 2012 crap because we can't find the next calendar!!!"

Maybe the world will end in 2012 (but not because of the Mayan calendar), but if the Mayans were so good at predicting stuff, why didn't they see the Spanish coming???

Whatever it is, I ain't buying it!

***RANT OFF***

Thanks for reading!

Later,
ZA

Ramblings on the SHTF x2...

Howdy Folks,

With the talk of Iran was going to do 'something' today and the record snowfall in Washington D.C. it got me to thinking... What would have happened if you were in the Capitol (or any where else) and had to evacuate with a blizzard?

I reckon if that is where you chose to live, then you are pretty much stuck when mother nature dumps on you.

I think the most important thing is be aware of the weather and realize that if you plan on bugging out, you are not guaranteed clear skies, empty roads, and smooth sailing, so plan accordingly!!!

Later,
ZA