Two Meters, Old Radios, and Rockets

 The box that sat under the tree on Christmas morning of 1980 was of a size and weight that gave away its contents long before I tore through the wrapping paper. The artwork on the box boasted that I would soon hear "ships at sea", "ham band operators", and "news from major cities around the world". It was right.

The Radio Shack DX-100 had OK sensitivity, so-so selectivity, and absolutely horrible stability. The tuning dial was neither accurate nor precise. Naturally, I straight up loved that radio. The three-band transistor radio that I've mentioned a few times piqued my interest; the DX-100 made me an SWL.

For the first time, I could monitor SSB signals. The amateur bands, as some now-forgotten Tandy Corporation copy writer pointed out, seemed a good place to start. On a spring day in 1981, I heard an operator on twenty meters who was just beside himself with the joy he was sharing with a fellow ham. "Two meters is just great," he enthused, "and the repeaters make it so enjoyable."

It was with a little envy that I listened to this glowing review. Santa Claus had come through big-time on that DX-100; a VHF-capable receiver was, for the moment, out of reach.

In the summer of 2019 I passed the Technician exam and did what any new ham is supposed to do: I drove directly from the exam site to Ham Radio Outlet and bought a dual band HT. Still vividly recalling what my thirteen-year-old self had heard about two meters, I got home, immediately downloaded the RepeaterBook app, and began monitoring two meter repeaters. I was appalled. It didn't help that I unwittingly chose, as literally the first repeater to monitor, the one that Southern California amateurs avoid talking about. But it didn't get much better as I tuned around. It seemed the Elmerly advice about keeping sex, religion, and politics (that last one particularly) off the air had been forgotten, and all too often there were on-air comments that clearly crossed the line into the inappropriate. I seriously questioned what I had gotten myself into. At this critical stage for a brand new ham, this could easily have been the point where I took the HT back to HRO, got my money back, and bought a few more vinyl records. 

Fortunately for me, I didn't return the HT, and quickly found a warm and welcoming community of fellow space cadets among the amateur radio satellite community. Less than a year after passing the Technician exam—and before I passed the General exam—I found an equally warm and welcoming community of fellow brass pounders on HF CW.

And there was one notably glorious day for two meters, one that would make that anonymous ham from the early '80s proud. In November of 2020, my wife and I drove to Lompoc, California to view a Falcon 9 satellite launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The amateur radio satellite AO-91 (which, coincidentally, had been launched from that very facility almost exactly three years prior) would be flying over about a half hour after the instantaneous launch window, so I brought my HT and Arrow antenna. It would be a good opportunity to activate grid square CM94 (a somewhat rare one) and it would be a good way to kill time while the inevitable traffic jam worked its way out of the prime viewing area. Before the launch, I tuned my HT to 146.520, to see if anyone else watching the launch brought their radios. I worked three QSOs over the forty-five minutes leading up to the launch, all of us just as excited as kids at Christmas Eve. I mentioned the upcoming satellite pass, and as we were relaxing in the car after the launch one of those QSO partners, seeing my Arrow by the back of the car, gave a friendly honk of the horn and another quick call on 520. 

Despite this one day of radio fun, terrestrial VHF and UHF remain problematic. The simple solution for any ham when something on the air isn't your cup of tea is to QSY, and I did that, but a challenge that we have to face here is that VHF and UHF are the initial touch point for most hams and a good number of would-be hams. How many brand new hams went through the same experience I did and did return their HTs for a refund? Or left that HT in a drawer never to be used? How many scanner and SDR listeners spent a little time monitoring two meter repeaters and never even bothered to take the test?

In my SWL days, I regularly read Monitoring Times. There was a technical Q&A feature every month, where readers could send in their questions. One question was from a reader wondering how likely it was that his 49 MHz cordless telephone was being monitored by someone with a scanner. The answer was as straightforward as it is applicable to frequencies other than 49 MHz: always assume you're being monitored. Whether we realize it—or like it—or not, that makes each of us ambassadors for this hobby every time we key up a transmitter. 

As radio amateurs, we are obligated to abide by Part 97, or the relevant regulations in your whatever country you're in. I'd like to think most of us aspire to the Radio Amateur's Code. It may be time to consider a third prong of radio conduct. Call it the SDR Rule. If a random member of the community got a brand new SDR and were to monitor my QSO (and by random, I mean random, meaning they'd be highly unlikely to closely match me on demographic factors like age, gender, race, income, education level, etc.), would they, as a result of hearing me and how I conduct myself on the air, be more likely or less likely to want to take the exam and become a ham themselves? 

Hopefully we can strengthen the growth of this incredible hobby and maybe, just maybe, two meters can live up to that glowing 1981 assessment.