Higher bands, higher thinking

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970)

Today we might call it ‘thinking outside of the box’, which is considered to be a good and useful skill in most fields. However every free-thinker will have some strange and unusual ideas and some weird and ridiculous ideas. The socially inept will proffer his ill-considered ideas along with his well conceived plans and both will be ignored equally. The skill in knowing when to speak and when to keep silence is what separates the merely eccentric from the genius. No hope for me then.

Radio amateurs are often conceived as being eccentric and some of us can only hope that our neighbours and friends think of us as some sort of slightly eccentric genius rather than just being some kind of weirdo. It is usually a good sign when they think you can fix everything from a pop up toaster to their computer, but boy! can it be a pain in the ass.

The most eccentric of radio amateurs must surely be those who operate on the higher bands and there are certainly some of the brightest brains who operate almost exclusively in the gigahertz. So maybe it was the attraction of the people with big brains that attracted me to 23 cms or maybe that contacts are so few and far between that speaking to anyone was like getting rare DX on HF, I do not know. In all probability it was that I did not want to be missing out by not being QRV.

Tuesday night was the RSGB UHF contest for 23 & 13 cms and I was there to give away points. The problem is I only have FM on 23 cms and I only have a vertical antenna. I only got three contacts but it was quite satisfying to take part and know I had helped those who had bothered to come up off the ssb portion of the band to increase their score. One of these days I will get equipment that allows me to work ssb on 23 cms and then I might be able to get in to double figures, but until then I appeal to those taking part in these contests to give a call at some point on FM, there are points waiting. Contesting on FM is pehaps just too eccentric for some.