Longview Hills @ Newport Oregon

Amateur Radio as a Hobby


When you retired you found many paths of interest that had been locked away from you because you did not have the time to pursue them. Suddenly, SHAZZAM! You retired and you have received the gift of time. You had sold your time to an employer or business or to raising a family all of your adult life. Now it's recess time and you have been let out of the school room and it's time to play.

Play? Play what? Finding the right swing or the perfect monkey bars.. That isn't easy. You've been tethered to a job for so long that you actually thought you were that job. At a party nobody cared or asked who you were... Instead they wanted to know what you did. Slowly, over a lifetime you became the job. Because of that growing experience you were promoted to grander heights within the JOB as you became more it than you.

SHAZZAM! Now nobody cares what you did. Now they want to know who you are? REVERSAL! When you hit the golden years a lifetime of desires floods home as you take advantage of the freedom given to you and you rush out to do all those things that you thought you were deprived of during the work years.

What then, will you do with the gift of time when you have done all the things you wanted to do? Is there something interesting lingering back in the recesses of your mind, Bunky? Hmmmm? Something you stored away from younger tears because there was no time?

For me, I found one of the those lost interests in HAM radio recently. About ten of us from all over Newport and 5 LVH residents became Ham Radio operators. To be a HAM you no longer have to learn Morris code. We have a retired teacher (John Wilson) from a home near the light house that comes and teaches the "HOW TO" Free. The book costs $28 and the test costs $14. Pass it and you are on your way.

Misconceptions that you need this huge outdoor antenna array and need to screw up everyones phone lines and TV reception are just that, misconceptions. Today, most HAMs use low powered radios that bother nothing. Signals from those radios go out at 5 watts of power, less than a refrigerator light bulb, from a small handheld unit. That signal goes up to one of the local microwave towers on the hills overlooking Otter Crest where it is resent out at several hundred watts covering a lot of the coast and inland to Eugene and Salem and sometimes further. It bothers no-one.

Interested? Say so in the comments.. Ask your questions in the comments.... Maybe we can get another class if there is an interest... Great for people limited in their ability to be mobile.