The familiar, the old, and the really, really new

While Tuesday was quite a busy day for me in terms of amateur radio, that's probably not that much different than most of you.  But I wanted to reflect on what it means.

First, the familiar.  Was on 40 meter SSB with a new friend I met at the Kentucky hamfests I attended over the past several weeks.  Nothing remarkable there, except that's it nice that we have those bands and we can use them.  It's nice also to know that we can immediately find something in common with people through ham radio. 

The old has to do with repair.  Three of us tackled a project that needed to be done for our club.  The rotor stopped indicating direction, and we have an exercise coming up where we will need either all of the beams (6 meters, 2 meters and 440) or at least one of them.  Preparations are going on all over the country for the fall SET (Simulated Emergency Test) and sometimes that includes repair of equipment that has become faulty or balky or just plain doesn't work.  Not a remarkable circumstance in itself, but something that we just "do" as hams.  After all, as we've been pointing out to congressional representatives across the country, we maintain a lot of equipment for hams to use.  And we keep it in good repair.

Finally, last evening it was remarkable to see a dozen people in a conference room struggling to make sense out of programming for DMR radios.  Yes, it's hard and sometimes puzzling, but no one was giving up.  Instead, there is this desire among hams to learn new things, and to get the latest equipment --not just because it's new, but because it might lead us somewhere new.  We might be on the leading edge of something new for ham radio or science in general.  No, we won't be the individuals who make a discovery that no one else has made.  But in participating in these aspects of the hobby, we collectively make it possible for new discoveries to be made.  Which new technology interests you?