The lessons we teach.

Foundations of Amateur Radio

When you become a member of the amateur radio community you become part of a small group of humans who know and understand certain aspects of life. That's not to say that others don't share this or that the knowledge is unique or special, but radio amateurs are required to know this before they receive their license.

In the past I've spoken about how getting a license is like receiving a key that opens the door to the world of radio communications. It's one of the more accessible ways to grab hold of this key and it's the recipe for life long learning.

During the week a friend of mine, a newly minted amateur, pointed out that this represents something that the general population isn't aware of or attaches little in the way of value to. The interconnectedness of radio spectrum is something that radio amateurs take for granted. To us it's obvious. A transmitter on 3585 kHz is fundamentally the same as one on 92.1 MHz. A key fob on 434 MHz is similar to a computer on 2.45 GHz as is a laser on 500 THz or an X-ray machine on 30 PHz.

As a radio amateur we're taught that the radio spectrum is a continuous phenomenon and that spectrum is shared among users with specific rules around interference and interaction.

Another thing we know as radio amateurs is the difference between the front and the back of a Yagi-antenna. We know about radiation patterns, about the ionosphere and how the sun and sun-spots interact with some of our activities.

The point is that our knowledge, it's fair to say, specialised knowledge, even at the lowest level of licensing, exceeds that of the general public.

This is all by way of background because this leads to something that I learnt during the week.

As amateurs we have a responsibility to be custodians of that knowledge, that is, to care for it and to ensure its accuracy and to preserve that knowledge.

For some amateurs that means that they want this information to be exclusive, but for me it means that this information should be shared and nurtured and encouraged in those people who make choices based on incorrect information.

For example, as a radio amateur it's my duty to inform a person who is contemplating breaking the radio spectrum licensing rules that they are doing so. Not because I'm a regulator, but because I have specialised information that they lack. Importing a radio module that's using a frequency that's not available in your country is an example of something that I am compelled to point out.

I know that some amateurs take this compulsion to the next level and become a de-facto police officer attempting to enforce those restrictions. I understand where that comes from, but I also know that this is not my role and it's not your role. If you feel strongly enough about a transgression, perceived or real, there are plenty of ways to deal with that. Reporting the offence to the regulator is one option for example.

Knowing which end is the front of a TV antenna means that you can point out a mistake to a home-owner about the direction their antenna is pointing at, but it doesn't mean that you need to climb on their roof to turn it around.

I've said many times before that having an amateur license is a privilege. It's a gift, even if you worked hard for it, it was given to you, bestowed on you by the regulator in your country.

It seems to me that having such a gift means that it should be treated as such. As radio amateurs we're not entitled to a license, nor are we entitled to transmit. We're granted permission to do so.

I think that it's important to keep that in the back of our minds when we set out to educate those around us.

As for the education itself. It pays to consider what you take for granted when you're giving advice. Telling a person about Wi-Fi propagation through a home is a complex topic. You can make the explanation as hard or as simple as you want, but don't expect that the person receiving the advice has the same background information or interest that you have.

I was once told by a statistician about how various statistics worked and what their background was. I was translating a program from Modula-2 into WingZ hyper-script. I didn't care about how it worked, just that the provided code did what it was supposed to and that what I wrote did the same thing. I had no interest in becoming a professor in statistics, despite the earnest instruction enforced on me by my employer 30 years ago.

It's been said that you must learn from the mistakes of others. You can't possibly live long enough to make them all yourself.

What and how we teach those around us can be the seed of something bigger. I may well have become a statistician if the information had been tailored to my requirements, but that chance was lost 30 years ago.

I think it's a great way to consider what we teach and how.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB