Welcome to Handiham World!
The Handiham Radio Club had their regular meeting at the California camp session last month. As I already reported to you, the club passed a motion in support of a lifetime membership in the Handiham System. The club suggested a lifetime member fee of $100 US. This change would have to be approved at Handiham headquarters.
Well, guess what? In a staff meeting yesterday, the lifetime membership was approved. We will now begin offering lifetime memberships in Courage Center's Handiham System. Renewing members will be offered the option of paying $100, which is 10 times the amount of the regular annual fee of $10.
As always, we accept people into the program who cannot afford to pay anything, and payment by DX members is optional (due to hassles with exchange rates and the like.) We do ask our members to confirm their membership annually, regardless of payment method. USA members receive a notification via mail that includes a pre-addressed return envelope.
We are trying to make participation in Courage Center's Handiham System as easy as possible, and we hope these changes will keep our members active in the program. Please let us know if there is anything else we can do to add value to membership.
In other news from the staff meeting, we have decided to continue the new radios for new hams program at this summer's Minnesota Radio Camp. Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, the Handiham members who enroll in the Technician course at Minnesota Radio Camp will once again be able to earn new handheld radios by passing their Technician exams. How cool is that?!!! Please let us know if you would like an application form to attend this summer's week-long Minnesota Radio Camp session in late August.
Patrick Tice
wa0tda@arrl.net
Handiham Manager
Avery's QTH: In which Avery gets a couple of disturbing calls.
Image: Avery the Muscovy Duck. "Let insults roll off your back like water off a duck's back", quacks Avery.
Welcome Once Again To My Humble QTH:
Last week I received a couple of very disturbing phone calls from hams saying things I never thought I would hear. They were told to get off the air because they were blind and can't do anything. (This can apply to just about any disability.)
Even if the persons saying such things were only kidding, those kinds of comments were in very poor taste. It was even worse if it was done over the air so many people would have heard it.
Of course the idea that hams who are blind are incompetent on the air is totally untrue as we all know. I have a very good friend who lost his sight to a disease who was net control for a major wide area repeater system every week for three solid years. He repairs computers and writes software as a business. Every time I drive over to visit he is working on a project like fixing a broken dishwasher or changing the oil and plugs in his wife's car. He is very good at playing several musical instruments, too.
Another local area blind ham (now a Silent key) did the traffic on a major AM Broadcast station for many years. The majority of listeners did not even know he was blind until a full page article on him appeared in the local newspaper. He had bank of scanners and would read Braille to get necessary information he needed. On the ham bands he was just another operator.
But back to my story about the disturbing phone call. Not being there, it is a little difficult to know what was happening for sure. Many times people do like to kid around. For example, one person I used to work with would always say something very negative to me whenever he saw me.
He would say something like, "OH, NO! It's you again!" Or one I will never forget -- a "compliment" that went like this:
"Avery is strong as an Ox and twice as dumb".
I would reply, "GEE! Not everyone is as strong as an Ox", and just leave out the rest. It soon became a game and the contest was to be the first one to get out the negative comment... As it turned out he was like that with everyone if he liked you. If he didn't like you, he would just not say anything at all and walk right by like you were not even there.
Anyway I guess my point here is that sometimes we have to be like the duck. You know the saying "it is just like water off a duck's back". We just have to have "THICK SKIN" and let some of the kidding or outright stupidity just slide off our backs. If a person is quick with responses, they can turn around the comment and get the other person laughing with you, not at you, and you have made a friend. If you have a chance listen to some of those old Dean Martin Celebrity ROASTS, you know what I mean. Someone has a birthday or anniversary of an award and the person who got the award is at the head of the table and the rest of the people around the table tell some very embarrassing (not always true) stories about them. It is all in fun, of course. Then when they are all done, the person gets a turn to respond to each person's comments which are many times even worse that what was said in the first place. OK! So, when everyone is done they all have a good laugh and have their meal.
The other thing is there are always other ham radio clubs or repeater groups that you may consider joining if you think there was something more than just kidding going on. If it is just one or two people in the club doing it, just stay away from them and work with other people in the group.
I sincerely hope that we don't have this sort of thing happening in the Amateur Radio community. After all, we have proved time and time again that when all else fails, the Amateur Radio operators get the communications through whether or not we have a disability.
So, until next time, 73 es DX de K0HLA, Avery
If you want call me my direct line is:
763-520-0515
