The comradery of amateur radio

As many people who read my blog know amateur(ham) radio is one of my hobbies.  One of the things I've found with ham radio is a willingness for everyone to help each other out.  Of course it makes sense for any friends or relatives, such as my dad, to help out when needed.  But then you have complete strangers willing to help as well.

One area is the show Ham Nation on the Twit.tv network.  For anyone who has any interest in ham radio I would highly recommend you check it out at http://twit.tv/hn.  They cover almost any area of ham radio, and will try to answer any question asked of them.  Its hosted by some famous hams such as Bob Heil and Gordon West.

Another place you can get help is just by asking people online.  One good example of this is when I was looking for a way to connect my radio to my computer.  I tried a few options that seemed to work, but not exactly right.  I put a few questions out on some ham radio related message boards, and in the end Ray KG7AV offered to send me a EZ-PSK interface free of charge.  All he was asking me was for me to help cover the cost of shipping.  So for the price of a small flat rate USPS box it was sent to me.  I hooked it up, and tested it out, and found that it looks like it will work with my radio.  So this was great, it now will allow me to get on the air with various digital modes.














These are just two examples of how members of the ham radio community are willing to help each other.  I know there are easily hundreds more that happen, but I'm going to cut this blog post short for today.  I have another blog post in mind that will also touch on this, so stay tuned for that one.