The Code

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the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules
​-Captain Barbossa
​                                    (Pirates of the Caribbean)

     The Amateur's Code might not be as exciting as the pirate's code, but it is still a set of very good guidelines!  I'm writing about it, because our code reached out and smacked me the other night.  Let me explain:

     I love ham radio.  With the little free time I have, I get on the air whenever I can.  When I can't get on the air, I read about ham radio, I write about ham radio, I listen to Podcasts about ham radio, etc.  For the last semester, I haven't had much free time however, so I haven't gotten to do much radio, or radio related activities.  I did manage one park activation during a work trip, and some contacts here and there from the mobile.  I also wrote some blog posts and kicked off my crowd-sourced project.

     I'm hoping that in that last paragraph you caught my use of the word "semester."  Yup - that means that on top of everything else I do, I'm also an adult learner!  The company I work for does tuition reimbursement, so I've been slowly working at my Bachelors degree in Information Systems.  I'll be done by this time next year - all I have left is 3 more electives, and my senior research project (guess what topic I'll try to sneak in there...)

     Anyway, traveling for work, having a family, and going to school makes me a pretty busy dude.  This busyness is what led to the aforementioned time period with less radio activity than I would like.  I've been feeling bad about this.  Not bad like I "owed" something to someone, but bad like you feel when it seems like your missing out on something.  

     One night before bed, I happened to flip open my copy of the ARRL handbook, which sits on my nightstand (yup - that's the kind of geek I am.)  Just a couple pages into the handbook is the Amateur's Code.  If you want to read the whole thing you can find it on the ARRL's Webpage, but I wanted to point out a specific section that spoke to me.

     The section that jumped out to me was the section stating that:
​The Radio Amateur is:
...
​Balanced...radio is an avocation, never interfering with duties owed to family, job, school or community.
...

     Stumbling across that section, on the evening that I did, was perfect timing.  It reminded me that when life is busy, enjoy it, and know that radio will be there when times are a little less hectic!

     For me, that time is starting now!  Since I don't have class again till the fall, I'm hoping to get some more of my project work done (I've made some pretty decent progress on the basement shack - I'll share about that soon) and get more time on the air (maybe some WWFF activations at the parks near my house). Most importantly, I'll just have fun doing whatever radio stuff I happen to have time to do!