I tried getting into Amateur Radio. I'm mid-30s, and I really liked the idea of ham radio, ever since I was a child.
So I went ahead and spent 8 months on it. I got my Extra license (the highest level), learned all about Ares, got into nets.. all of it. I bought an Icom 7300 (really great radio). I even started learning Morse.
Why did I quit?
I couldn't deal with some of the hmm,"interesting" people on ham radio! I have a slight accent, enough to mark me out as a non-native born American (I'm a citizen now though), and I kept meeting people who were downright nasty to me.
I tried focusing on the positive, but after a few months and one particularly unpleasant contact, my wife asked me why I was wasting my time trying to talk to people who clearly didn't want me around.
She was right, and I quit. Yes, I met plenty of really nice hams, but every week that I was on the air, I would be bound to find someone calling me names.
Sure, you can just "spin the dial", but for those who don't know, ham radio is not anonymous. FCC regulations state that you have to give your call sign every 10 minutes, and you can look up anyone's name and home address from that call sign. That unpleasant contact consisted of a fine citizen telling me that he was going to come over and "kick my ass". Just because he thought I was illegal or something like that.
I'm sure he was just bloviating, but hey, I have a wife and kids.. I'm not risking it.
I'm still an Extra, but I sold my radios and don't want to get into it anymore.
So I went ahead and spent 8 months on it. I got my Extra license (the highest level), learned all about Ares, got into nets.. all of it. I bought an Icom 7300 (really great radio). I even started learning Morse.
Why did I quit?
I couldn't deal with some of the hmm,"interesting" people on ham radio! I have a slight accent, enough to mark me out as a non-native born American (I'm a citizen now though), and I kept meeting people who were downright nasty to me.
I tried focusing on the positive, but after a few months and one particularly unpleasant contact, my wife asked me why I was wasting my time trying to talk to people who clearly didn't want me around.
She was right, and I quit. Yes, I met plenty of really nice hams, but every week that I was on the air, I would be bound to find someone calling me names.
Sure, you can just "spin the dial", but for those who don't know, ham radio is not anonymous. FCC regulations state that you have to give your call sign every 10 minutes, and you can look up anyone's name and home address from that call sign. That unpleasant contact consisted of a fine citizen telling me that he was going to come over and "kick my ass". Just because he thought I was illegal or something like that.
I'm sure he was just bloviating, but hey, I have a wife and kids.. I'm not risking it.
I'm still an Extra, but I sold my radios and don't want to get into it anymore.