{"id":19,"date":"2020-10-10T05:01:53","date_gmt":"2020-10-10T05:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/?p=19"},"modified":"2020-10-10T05:01:55","modified_gmt":"2020-10-10T05:01:55","slug":"20-year-hiatus-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/?p=19","title":{"rendered":"20-year hiatus (part 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I left the service in 1998 after 15 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I regret this decision to this day; however, it was probably the only decision I could make at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The navy wanted to send me over to the middle east for a year.\u00a0 They were also threatening to kick me out for being a fat boy. I spent 12 years on the edge of the body fat standards, slipping under the wire time after time.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My 2nd wife had a great job in the local economy and was making good money. On top of that, I really couldn\u2019t see leaving her to fend for herself with my 3 growing sons from my first marriage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faced with all of these hurdles, I opted to get out and find a job in Omaha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was in the winter of 1998 and I think that\u2019s essentially when my time in ham radio came to an end. I may have puttered around a bit now and then but by the time my license expired in August 2000, I hadn\u2019t touched anything in months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was buy with my job as a Unix systems admin and with my kids, growing into their teen years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Money was needed for other things and I began selling off my equipment. All my VHF and UHF gear went first. Then, my wife and I decided to split and divorce and money got tight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Kenwood TS-830S went next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At some point, my father had given my his rig. It was a really nice all mode, all band HF rig from Yaesu.  I think it was an FT-757GXII. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, I sold his power supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After that, all I had were a couple of old antenna, some CW keys, and a bunch of fading memories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over time, I tossed my collection of ham radio magazines (I had all the 73 mags for years and years.\u00a0 Some CQ and a couple of other ones, too.\u00a0 I did manage to hold on to some of my reference books about antenna construction, but that was about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And here we are today, in September of 2020.  Literally 20 years after my license expired. I\u2019ve suddenly decided I want to be involved in ham radio again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t explain why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything seems to have changed and then nothing seems to be different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve joined some ham groups on Reddit.  And I\u2019ve watched a few hours of youtube videos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hobby has become significantly cheaper to jump into but also seems to be significantly more expensive to enjoy at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems like no one actually learns about the hobby any more.  They buy a full featured handheld radio for $25 on amazon and memorize the answers to 35 questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then they get online and ask some really ignorant questions that they *should* already have answers for simply by studying the learning material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Removing the code requirement from ham radio also removed the requirement and incentive to learn about radio wave propagation and radio theory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

New hams just study the questions and answers and hope for the best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel for the bait myself when I saw how cheap some of the new hardware is: $23 for a dual-band VHF\/UHF handheld radio. $199 for a 4 band HF rig.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, you can jump in with literally no money. But why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was introduced to ham radio, there was still a bit of adventure in the hobby.  People were still repairing their own equipment and building their own antenna. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spent so much time trying to create home-brew ground plane verticals and built many a dipole antenna with bits and pieces from all over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wasn\u2019t much good with repairs on the old Kenwood though. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And even then, the old timers looked down on me for my cheap, garbage radios from Radio Shack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Radio Shack is out of the picture today but Chinese companies like Baofeng and Xiegu have stepped in with low(er) priced alternatives for the thrifty ham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I guess we\u2019ll see if I actually go through with it.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I left the service in 1998 after 15 years.  I regret this decision to this day; however, it was probably the only decision I could make at the time. The …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","anons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20,"href":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions\/20"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}