Back in the 1960s when I was a young lad, I became interested in electricity and electronics. As I was pretty young, I am fortunate to have survived my interests but that’s a good story for another time. Anyway, my cousin was a Ham and I remember seeing his station. I was intrigued and asked him about it. He demonstrated it and asked if I might be interested in Ham Radio. Well yeah! So, I began my studies and he helped me along. He brought me parts for projects and helped me learn to build small projects. I remember my very first project quite well. It was a 12v DC power supply.
More to come…
June 20th, 2020 – My feelings about the “New Normal”
I realize that the “New Normal” will change things for all of us for the foreseeable future and I have no choice but to accept that but, I do not have to like it. Humans, by nature, are social creatures and when you take that social element of our daily lives away, it changes the way we function, the way we think, and the way we feel. It is like taking an essential piece of code from a robot’s programming. That robot will no longer function properly. If you think about the word “programming” you may remember that in the computer world, a “program” is also known as a “routine”. Since we are all robots to a degree and we all have routines (or programs), removing the social aspect of our routine from our daily life will force us to change the way we operate too. Now, here is the difference… robots are not sentient beings and cannot operate outside the scope of their programming (or routine). They have sensors but not senses. Within the parameters of their design, they can “feel” with their sensors but the don’t have “feelings”. Since we do have our senses and we can have feelings, taking a vital part of our routine away can dramatically change the way we operate until we adapt and create new routines. That’s the difference between humans and robots. Robots cannot modify their programming. Because we have our senses, feelings and can think, we humans can modify our routines. Many of us, however, resist doing so or, because of other variables in our most basic routines (our programming), find it so difficult we choose not to change. We need the “social” variable that is declared in our “programming” (our routine) to continue to operate normally.
Hopefully, this helps you understand David E Belville a little better. Right or wrong, I see Ham Radio as a social hobby and that social component is every bit as important as any other component of the hobby.
Dave Belville