Welcome to Handiham World.
Chill out!
Yes, it is a horrible winter here in Minnesota, and
from what I have been hearing from most everyone else in North America,
it is not much better where they live. Icy roads in Birmingham,
Alabama? Frigid temperatures down to the Gulf of Mexico? Freezing cold
in Florida?
Chill out, indeed.
Sometimes I think this kind of weather, especially
when it is protracted and winter just keeps going on and on, can make
people a little nutty. The phrase "chill out" doesn't really mean to
cool off in the sense of going outdoors in Minnesota to brave the polar
wind and subzero temperatures. It means that we should take a deep
breath and think things through a bit before making some rash decision
such as going nuts from cabin fever and snowshoeing to the nearest auto
dealer to buy a red sports car with a convertible top.
Our ham radio avocation is not immune from those
"chill out moments". Last week there was talk about how one group had
to move off an HF frequency because of interference from another group.
Later on a member of the "winning group" was overheard explaining how
he had the technology to take over that frequency. This sort of thing
is - thankfully - not the normal sort of behavior we experience every
day on the bands, though it is also not exactly unheard of. Another one
was on a repeater system connected to the VoIP systems. One guy was
telling another one off on the air for not identifying. The "tellee"
insisted that he had identified but that the I.D. probably didn't make
it down through the VoIP system due to the nature of such things with
their connectivity issues and delays. I sat there listening and
wondering if the cold weather was getting to people.
Sometimes we get stressed out by things that really
are not all that vital to our daily lives. The best advice I have heard
is, "Hey, it's only a hobby."
