Cathy Brooks explains the Seesmic Racoon.

Kind of noisy so play loud.

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Radio has always had a special place in my heart. I was a dj in college and have always had a shortwave radio so I can catch those strange scratchy signals from Radio Havana, the BBC, wherever. I can still remember the Cold War era interval signal from Radio Prague – now all that remains of it is a sample in an OMD song.

Ham radio is original social media. It’s a true do-it-yourself community. And there’s a tremendous cross-over between old school hams and early Internet adoptors. Who else would take the time to figure out how to hot-wire a server in their basement just for the fun of it? This year marks the 100th anniversary of voice transmitted over radio waves and the ARRL, the national organization for ham radio, is putting a big PR push into their Hello Radio campaign. You can get the details on the Hello Radio web site or on the ARRL’s public relations page.

To find out more about the program, I got in touch with Allen Pitts,W1AGP, the ARRL’s Media and Public Relations Manager. Allen created the campaign. My questions and Allen’s answers follow.

I got my technicians license a couple of years ago and haven’t gotten around to buying myself a rig, but this exchange might push me over the top.

9-11 and Katrina showed the importance of ham radio by providing critical communications when all the normal systems failed or were overloaded. Because each ham operator is coordinated with others, but can still function as a complete transmitting and receiving station totally independently and without reliance on any other systems, hams have a unique ability which is unmatched by others that need more elaborate infrastructure, complex supports, and have “choke points”.Like ants at a picnic, hams are coordinated but each one is fully functional all on its own. You can knock out some of them, you can knock out most of them, but they will still get to the picnic goodies! Knock out a cell phone tower or internet hub and you’re dead in the water.

Amateur Radio is also the place where people get to experiment. This is where you come to try things, see what happens and LEARN. A large number of the people that keep the “wired world” working learned the rudiments of their technologies in Amateur Radio. Hams were experimenting with mobile phones, FM and television long before the public knew about it. Currently hams are experimenting with higher and higher frequencies, faster digital communications, satellites, integration of digital radios, and many other exciting new realms.

Who would you communicate with and at what level of meaning? As a ham, if I would like to talk to an average person in, say, Morocco for example, I can get on my radio and call CQ Morocco. I do not need to know anyone there already, but I know I will before the day is out. With a little skill and understanding of radio, my own home station (which is fairly small) can talk to well over 100 countries where I chat with people. And the most magical part for me is that it is just me and my own little station that I assembled myself that is doing all this. I have met many new friends around the world this way.

Even beyond that, the spoken word is a unique form of human communication by which knowledge, emotions, beliefs and behaviors can all be shared at the same time. The human voice is rich in meaning and emotion. Just the tone someone’s words can arouse anger or can create feelings of comfort and joy. (Songs are possibly the most expressive of human activities). But in communication by text only, both the obvious and subtle nuances in voice tone, pitch and volume are absent. We can miss the message!

If we accept a standard definition that, “A language disorder is the impairment of expression and/or comprehension of words in context,” then the loss of the fullness of communication by voice is indeed a handicap.In a vain attempt to correct for this, we have developed a whole catalog of emoticons . Some have me “ROFLMAO”, while others are indecipherable. However these cannot replace the richness of the human voice and the subtleties that are shared in hearing speech itself. We have all seen the results in emails that aroused anger and resentment even if totally untended by the author. But if you actually talk to someone, you reveal many additional elements about how you think and feel. In a sense, you are being “more real” with the other person and allowing a much deeper relationship to form.

There indeed are two polarities happening in the country. One is the continuation of the “instant gratification” by which through simply tossing a wad of money at something, you acquire it. You may not understand it, nor even know how to program it, but ownership is the goal. To me, it is a pretty shallow way of living, but that’s just me.In revolt against this “bling bling” culture is a small but constant group that looks for an understanding of things for fulfillment. These are the people who ask, “WHY?” They are the serious students, the kit builders, engineers, researchers, and others who actually advance humanity. Hams fit into this second group. You cannot BUY an Amateur Radio Operator license – you can only earn it.

The ARRL has a podcast of “The ARRL audio news” available at www.arrl.org/arrlletter/audio/ With only one of me here at HQ in Newington, there simply is not time to do all the things I might like to do – such as blogs. But this is where the hundreds of Public Information Officers who volunteer with the ARRL come into play. By myself, I can only provide the tools that these PIOs need. THEY are the ones who really do the Media and PR work. Because a news story must have local impact to be relevant, we encourage the PIOs to be entrepreneurial in their work. If one wants to try a blog – great! If another wants to make a radio commercial – that’s good too!

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