I had a wakeup call yesterday and while not all ham radio related, a significant part of my "personal vision" is.
How can we be so consumed with the more? You know more radios, more power output, more antennas, more gadgets and even more charged on the plastic.
We are ever consumed by reading the ads for new radios from the Far East. Some hams even subscribe (for $59) to getting these ads via a download from a purported radio amateurs journal. Often new stuff shows up on our phones without our even doing a search. Thank you, AI.
I am terribly guilty of looking at Amazon for new gadgets I can share with the blog readers. Shudder, I am also an eBay junkie -- trying to spot the $50 boat anchor rig that will test my technical skills at a reincarnation.
It is summertime and time for ham fests. A blog reader from NJ (yes, it is state and more than Tony Soprano) sent a link to a recent ham fest. I enjoyed looking at all of the stuff for sale. Some of that stuff I have been looking to find for years. Lots of parts that could be made into "leenear amps". Many high-power antenna tuners from Murch and EF Johnson were spotted. Good thing I didn't go -- I would be cash poor.
Read the mail (eavesdrop on QSO's) and you hear two subject areas often discussed: new radio equipment just acquired and the current illness of the week (or weak). Politics also seems to be in current vogue these days.
But the equipment is not the cheap stuff McGee. If it is a younger ham with a family spending $10K for new radio toys seems at odds with when I had a young family -- there just wasn't that kind of money in my budget. Once the kids were gone and I was retired -- a bit more money but still $10K for ham gear was not something easily done. I guess building my own gear came from how to do it by spending only $100.
It also seems that the new equipment acquisition is a revolving door as often you will hear from hams who have bought three or four new spendy rigs in a span of 1 year. Yes, they lost money, but they have tried them all.
Why can't we just be satisfied with the dozen or so radios we all have. What drives us to buy or build another radio? Can we not just take time to use what we have in the shack? Is it consumerism that drives us or keeping up with the Jonses? Or is it the much sought after bragging rights -- look at me I built a SSB transceiver that fits in a shirt pocket (large size pocket please).
Now to six trash bags and two carboard boxes. There was a passing at the Board and Care facility yesterday. It was a recent resident who had been there only a month and seemed OK but is now gone. Outside on the front porch were her possessions awaiting pick up by her family. Her whole life was now in 6 bags and two boxes. This stuff will not follow her to her final resting place, and neither will that $10K new radio you just had to have.
We are here on earth for just a short time. Use that time wisely and temper the hobby with the real important things in life like family and loved ones*. This may be the time to fix the family discord problems and get everyone into the fold. Each day is precious, and we should cherish our life gift. All of us will end up with six trash bags and two boxes -- but the real question is the path we take during our lifetime.
TYGNYB.
73's
Pete N6QW
*Just In Case you have both an XYL and GF