I was never very interested in emergency communications. Perhaps it’s because I live in Michigan, which according to World Atlas, is the second safest state as far as natural disasters go.

With what has gone on lately in North Carolina I’m rethinking my position. I still don’t think that every ham has to go whole hog (pun intended) on emergency communications, but we should have the ability to communicate without grid power and some knowledge of emergency communications techniques and protocols.

I’ve always recommended that hams join the ARRL, but recent events have certainly tested my resolve. The ARRL seems to lurch from calamity to calamity. Earlier this year, there was the decision to discontinue sending copies of the print version of QST to members. Then, in May, there was a cyber attack on the ARRL’s shaky IT infrastructure.

My latest One-Day Tech Class took place on Saturday 1 June 2024. There were only 13 in this class, fewer than most classes that I teach. I think the main reason for this is that the university school year had already ended, so there were only a couple of students in this class.

My brother, Mike, runs an estate sale company, Metro Detroit Estate Sales (shameless plug intended). From time to time, he’ll call me when a sale he’s conducting includes some electronics or ham radio gear.

A couple of months ago, he called and said that this most recent sale included a bunch of miscellaneous amateur radio-related stuff. The owner of the house, who passed away, was the daughter of W8HZN, and the estate included some of his logbooks, some old QSL cards from the 1930s, and some Popular Electronics magazines from the 1960s.

Well, now the IARU is updating Ethics and Operating Procedures for the Radio Amateur, and I’m part of the group that’s working on the update. One of our tasks is to make the text more gender-neutral. The ARRL has a somewhat gender-neutral version of the Code, but really all they did was to replace “he” with “he/she.”

That being the case, I’ve taken it upon myself to create not only a gender-neutral version of the Code, but to also clarify some of the language.

In teaching Tech classes, I encounter many people who think this way. They just want to push buttons and talk on the radio. They say, “I’m only going to use it when I go off-roading with friends,” or “I’m only going to use it when my CERT team is activated.”

I always ask them what they’re going to do when something goes wrong—and we know that at some point, something is going to wrong. Without some basic knowledge of how radio works, how are they going to fix the problem or work around it? If they can’t do that, then they’re useless as a communicator and the experience is going to be very frustrating. So, the first thing that I try to get across that they’ll have a lot more fun with ham radio if they understand how the technology works.

Normally, I do a POTA activation with my KX-3 powered by a 9-Ahr battery. I run 15 W and mostly operate CW. I make plenty of contacts with this setup, but Paul, KW1L, one of my partners in crime, speculated if we’d do any better with a 100 W rig. Since I have access to an IC-7300, I suggested that we cart that out to K-3315, Island Lake Recreation Area next time.

Last week, Las Vegas was not on the site of DEFCON, but the American Poolplayer’s Association World Championships. And, on the Las Vegas Monorail, there were not only hackers with their cute DEFCON backpacks, but more pool players with small cases carrying their cue sticks.

One of the big items in amateur radio news the past couple of weeks is an FCC petition by a group calling itself the Shortwave Modernization Coalition (SMC). Basically, what they want to do is to use HF frequencies formerly reserved for broadcasting to send data using 20 kW transmitters at a bandwidth of 50 kHz. They’ve been doing this with an experimental license for several years now, and they are now petitioning the FCC to change the Part 90 rules.

I’ve been doing more Parks on the Air (POTA) operation this summer now that I’m “retired.” It’s been a lot of fun. Not only that, I’ve learned some stuff.

Here’s how my activations usually go. Two or three of us—my partners in crime have included Rick K8BMA, Paul KW1L, and my wife, Silvia—leave my house about 8:30 am and head up to K-3315, the Island Lake Recreation Area. The park is less than a half hour from my house.