Faith and Generosity

What use is an F-call? Recently I heard an f-call ask on-air about the performance of their HF antenna. It reminded me that in order for any learning to occur, there needs to be two elements that come together. While it's simple to ask questions among your friends, it takes a leap of faith to ask a stranger. So, one of the elements you need is a Leap of Faith, "I have a problem and I wonder if anyone might be able to help." For this leap of faith to pay off, you also need to gain access to the knowledge required to solve your problem. It can come in many guises, from "read the manual", through "I have done that and I solved it like this." to "Let me come over and give you a hand." The second element that is needed is Generosity. The interesting part for me is how the discussion opens up many possibilities when experienced people enter the conversation. It's one thing to acknowledge the original Leap but two inexperienced people talking to each other about a problem when neither of them have more than rudimentary understanding is less than satisfying, both for the two people and for any listeners on frequency. I'm glad to say that in this particular case some personal skill and knowledge was added to the discussion by some experienced hams, but I've also heard discussions where the blind were leading the blind. While it is possible that a question is asked by a novice f-call and answered by an experienced advanced-call, that is not always the case. In fact to me it seems, more often than not, the level of license bears little relation to a person's level of experience. Amateur Radio is like an aural history, made of story tellers and listeners. If you don't tell your stories pretty soon you'll run out of listeners and the history dies. So, no matter your place, taking a Leap of Faith, or providing Generosity, remember that in order for the hobby to endure we need to keep talking. I'm Onno VK6FLAB