Do You Copy?

The headline is shamelessly misleading. Away from the polymer clay and crafting world I try to work on other skills. Sometimes my crafty life seeps into everything but sometimes I tackle a whole new project. That would be the amateur radio thing.

My partner got his ham radio license a few years ago and spends time with the local club as well as teaching youth about it at yearly events. I finally decided to catch up and get one too. This involves reading through the handbook and taking a multiple choice exam. In my case, I’m lucky in that there’s a local instructor to help march us through the material and also demonstrate some of the more practical parts.

Ham or amateur radio is the non-commercial use of radio frequencies for everything from news to search and rescue to social interaction. Radio is still a super important part of communications as it’s used where more current tech can’t reach or where it would be prohibitively expensive. I live in semi-rural Canada where there is broadband internet… sort of. There just isn’t the population base here for commercial installers to wire up the larger parts of empty prairie and foothills for real coverage.

Wish me luck! In a few weeks I’ll be VA5 or VE5 something if you happen to be a ham.