Here’s the column I’m sending out for December……..Dan
When I was a kid, we had an album (remember records on vinyl?) that had a bunch of Christmas songs for kids. The song I remember most goes:
All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth,
My two front teeth, my two front teeth.Gee, if I could only have my two front teeth,
Then I could wish you Merry Chrith-math (sang with a lisp).
Seeing as how I’ve had my two front teeth for nearly 50 years now, and I pretty much have everything I want, I got to thinking about what I want for ham radio for Christmas this year. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far. In no particular order, I want:
- MORE SUNSPOTS!
- the median age for ham radio operators to actually decrease this year. This means not only recruiting kids, but also younger adults.
- the pessimists who are continually talking down ham radio to find new joy in the hobby and begin working to make it great.
- the FCC to appoint someone as effective as Riley Hollingsworth to take over as the enforcer of the amateur radio service regulations.
- the FCC to pay a little more attention to amateur radio regulations and not treat them as an afterthought.
- the silliness on 75m phone and 14.275 MHz to go QRT.
- the ARRL to work harder on making itself truly the “national association for amateur radio” and on increasing the percentage of licensed hams that are ARRL members.
- to be able to brag about all of ham radio’s “purposes,” not only providing emergency and public service communications. According to Part 97, these are:
- advancing the state of the radio art;
- improving our technical and operating skills;
- expanding the number of trained operators, technicians, and electronics experts; and
- enhancing international goodwill.
- ham radio clubs to grow and thrive even in these tough economic times.
When I asked this question on Twitter, I got a couple of answers that were versions of a couple of wishes above, but I also got a few more:
- WORMT wants “all of us to get on the air more and act as good ambassadors for the hobby,” and
- NT7S wants the hearts of ham grinches to grow a couple of sizes.
- N1WBV wants redesigns for most ham radio websites.
Sounds good to me. Happy New Year!
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When not waiting for Santa to decided if he’s been naughty or nice, Dan, KB6NU, teaches ham classes and blogs about ham radio (www.kb6nu.com)
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