MAY RADIO GIVEAWAY!

Alliance Amateur Radio Network to give away radios in the month of May

As I’ve been talking about in my (crappy) videos, I will be giving away radios from my personal stash on our YouTube channel. You might have questions. I’m going to try to answer them.

WHY? – The simple answer is I have several that I don’t use and probably won’t use. The bigger answer is to put my money where my mouth is. We are champions for inclusion in radio. One way we can accomplish this is to help remove some of the financial barriers. We already do not charge dues or fees to our members, AARN survives solely on donations, sales of merchandise, affiliate commissions, and founder investments. We can do more, so I am. Instead of my radios sitting on a shelf or in a box unused, I will be giving them away.

WHO? – These radios are mine – KC1MUR – purchased with my personal funds, not donated or given to me by a vendor. I will be giving them to individuals studying for their license, newly licensed hams, and hams that would like to expand their personal hobby but a new radio is not in the budget.

WHAT? – These radios are either practically new or in very good condition. All are functional, I’m not trying to avoid a trip to the landfill by giving away broken crap. When applicable, they will come with an upgraded antenna and\or other upgrades. See below:

1 – Baofeng DM-1701 DMR\Analog 5W HT with OpenGD77 installed, Nagoya antenna, hand mic. Since a DMR radio is vastly more useful and fun with a hotspot, one of those will be included. I’m in the process of assembling a Pi Star DMR hotspot with a simplex MMDVM hat. The Pi Star is new, I didn’t have an extra so I bought the parts to build one to give away. This was my goto DMR radio prior to purchasing a DM32 and I am very fond of it, it works amazing.
2 – Baofeng UV5G Pro 5W GMRS HT, ABBREE GMRS folding tactical antenna. I have two of these so I’m giving one away. These are my goto GMRS radios when I’m out in the woods or walking Fiona. Great little GMRS HT.
3 – QYT KT-8900R Tri-band 20w mobile, 2m\70cm\1.25m TX\RX. I ran this in my car and have been impressed with its performance. It punches above its weight class. This will come with a mag mount mobile antenna.

HOW – The giveaway kicks off on our YouTube channel. This will not be a random giveaway. I want these to go to people who could use them the most. That means that entry will include telling me about yourself, where you are in the hobby, and – yeh I know this part sucks – why it will change the way you enjoy the hobby. I will be giving away one radio a week in the month of May. Now, observant readers will note that May has more than 3 weeks and I’m only showing 3 radios. If we – AARN – can reach 200 subscribers before the close of the month, I will purchase a new mobile radio to add to the giveaway.

What are you waiting for? Go subscribe and follow our YouTube channel so you don’t miss out!

About Alliance Amateur Radio Network

The Alliance Amateur Radio Network (AARN) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting underserved, excluded, and marginalized individuals within the amateur radio community. By providing resources, mentorship, and a welcoming environment, AARN strives to make amateur radio accessible to all. AARN operates without membership fees, relying on donations and fundraising initiatives to sustain its programs and expand its reach.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Alliance Amateur Radio Network Launches Online Merchandise Store to Support Inclusivity

Illinois, New Hampshire – March 30, 2026 – The Alliance Amateur Radio Network (AARN) today announced the launch of its online merchandise store, offering a variety of ham radio-themed and AARN-branded items to support its mission of inclusivity and accessibility within the amateur radio community. The store features clothing, decals, drinkware, and accessories, providing a way for enthusiasts to show their support while contributing to a worthy cause.

AARN is committed to fostering a welcoming environment for all individuals interested in amateur radio, particularly those from underserved, excluded, and marginalized communities. Unlike many organizations, AARN does not charge membership fees, ensuring that financial barriers do not prevent anyone from participating. The launch of the merchandise store provides an alternative avenue for individuals to support AARN’s initiatives and further its reach.

“We are thrilled to introduce our online merchandise store to the ham radio community,” said Todd Owen, Founder at AARN. “This initiative allows us to raise funds to support our programs and continue our mission of creating a more inclusive and accessible hobby for everyone. Every purchase directly contributes to helping us reach and support those who may otherwise be excluded from the world of amateur radio.”

The merchandise store offers a diverse range of products designed to appeal to ham radio enthusiasts of all backgrounds. Items include t-shirts, hoodies, and hats featuring the AARN logo, as well as designs celebrating the spirit of amateur radio. Decals and stickers are available for personalizing equipment and vehicles, while drinkware and accessories provide practical ways to showcase support for AARN in everyday life.

AARN believes that amateur radio should be a hobby enjoyed by everyone, regardless of their background or circumstances. By offering high-quality merchandise that reflects the values of inclusivity and community, AARN hopes to engage a wider audience and inspire more people to get involved.

The AARN merchandise store is now open and ready to welcome customers. Visit the store to browse the collection and make a purchase that supports a more inclusive future for amateur radio.

About Alliance Amateur Radio Network

The Alliance Amateur Radio Network (AARN) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting underserved, excluded, and marginalized individuals within the amateur radio community. By providing resources, mentorship, and a welcoming environment, AARN strives to make amateur radio accessible to all. AARN operates without membership fees, relying on donations and fundraising initiatives to sustain its programs and expand its reach.

Digital Voice Hotspot on Windows for about $40

You can buy a pre-built, ready to go, MMDVM hotspot relatively inexpensively – around $40 – from a variety of vendors. Most them come with a 3D printed case, so why would you want to build one?
Because we can.
Early days of the hobby, almost everything was built. Commercial hardware for amateur radio wasn’t really a thing, and what you could buy usually needed some modification to work on the right bands. Since much of this equipment was tube-based, you also spent time repairing, adjusting drift, aligning, and general fiddling. That was part of the attraction for many to the hobby. In this century, the century of convenience and have-to-have-right-now, you can buy just about anything you want. Add to cart, check out, and FedEx\UPS\Bezobub (Amazon) will drop it right at your door – sometimes within hours of checking out. Gone are the days of waiting 6-8 weeks for your COD package to arrive (and hope you are home when it does since you have no clue when that would be). Opening up a box full of parts, dragging out the soldering iron from behind the mayonnaise jar of random screws and hinges, and putting together hardware under a 40w incandescent drop light in a musty basement are distant memories. Now our basements are game rooms, the lights smart LEDs, and the hardware just needs to be plugged in. So, let’s go old school with new technology and build a digital voice hotspot. Just for giggles, let’s also run it on Windows. Yeh, I know, real tech people use Linux. I use Linux, but sometimes Linux pisses me off, especially when it comes to WiFi and bluetooth hardware. Since the computer I wanted to connect this to has a Realtek WiFi adapter – hit or miss with Linux – and not everyone can play in Linus’s toy box, we are going with Windows 11. Additionally, while I could set this up on R Pi, I’m really trying to scale back on the number of single-purpose devices I have scattered about our house. The laptop I’ve set this up on is my general purpose radio hobby laptop. It runs all the time anyway, it is logical. Plus I’m running out of electrical outlets… As a bonus, this is pretty easy to do. The reward to effort ratio is quite favorable.

Before I get into the fun stuff, I would be remiss if I assumed everyone knows DMR, what is a hotspot, and why we would want one. DMR is a digital voice mode. It has upsides and downsides compared to analog voice, the default communication mode for 2m\70cm repeaters. Let’s start with the down, we can only go up from there. This is not an inclusive list.
Downsides:
– Radios are typically more expensive than comparable analog-only rigs.
– Programming is a different animal than analog and requires a mind-shift.
– You need to learn a different vocabulary.
– Most DMR CPS (Computer Programming Software) are craptastic at best. Even the popular OpenGD77 is not nearly as easy as Chirp.
– Digital is much more sensitive to the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), to the tune of 10-12db vs 6-8db for analog.
– Digital doesn’t degrade signal gracefully. It cuts and clips out, where analog can pull in a weak signal if you listen hard enough.
– Analog can do FM, AM, and SSB. Digital is FM-only.
– DMR transmissions can sound robotic and flat.
– Need to “kerchunk” or open repeater to listen.

So why would we want to do DMR?
– Radios can do analog and digital.
– Digital signal is cleaner and clearer until it drops.
– Uses significantly less bandwidth than analog.
– Allows two discrete conversations per channel vs one with analog.
– Potentially longer battery life.
– SMS messaging possible without intermediary system.
– Internet linking and linked repeaters allows you to talk around the world on an $80 Baofeng.
– Hundreds of talkgroups available, is like having 100s of nets available at any time.
– You can test your configuration, RX\TX quality without needing another user. DMR has a “Parrot” talkgroup (TG990 or 310997). You TX to it, it records and plays it back to you.

Ok, so why a hotspot? Can’t I just use a repeater?
You can as long as you have one that supports DMR, allows its use on DMR when you want to use it, and it is on the network you want to use. I have two repeaters within analog HT range of my couch that support DMR. One I cannot hit with digital consistently. The other one I can, but it only allows DMR a couple hours on weeknights and not at all on weekends. Not all repeaters support all networks. With a hotspot you can be on TGIF or Brandmeister or Fusion regardless of local availability.

Let’s get started.
Unlike analog, you need a separate ID (not your callsign but is linked to your callsign) in order to use DMR networks. Fortunately, you only need to register one ID use the multiple DMR networks available. Brandmeister, DMR-DMARC, TGIF, and others all recognize DMR IDs from the same source: Radio ID. Head on over to the link, register, and record your ID number. You don’t need to remember it like you do a callsign, this won’t be transmitted by voice during a call. You will need to enter it into your radio, and once up and running, your hotspot configuration to allow you on networks. Keep this number in an easy-to-find place.
Once you have your ID, head over to Brandmeister and TGIF and make accounts. Completed your registration, log back in and head over to the “Self Care” sections under your Account profile so you can register your hotspot. You don’t need to do this before you build your hotspot, you can wait. I like to do it now while I’m thinking of it instead of later when I can’t figure out whynothing is working. Create a hotspot password, enable and configure APRS over DMR if you want while in there. Save.

You will need to program your radio with a codeplug. This is beyond the scope of this article, there’s too many different radios and CPS to cover this here. I recommend hitting a reputable YouTuber or blogger using your radio model as a keyword. I have a Baofeng DM-1701 and DM32 Pro. They use different CPS and firmware, even export\import from one to another isn’t always a smooth process. If you can, find a compatible codeplug (basically a complete radio export) for your radio and where you want to operate. People share them on forums, social media, etc. This saves significant time and headache. Before you upload to your radio, make sure you have entered iwhere required (usually in the general settings) the Radio ID number you registered, else you are going to be really frustrated when nothing works.

Now we get to go shopping.
We will need two components beyond our PC to build the hotspot:
– USB TTL to Serial converter, something that says it is “CP2102 USB 2.0 to TTL Module Serial Converter Adapter Module USB to TTL”. Do not worry if it says R Pi someplace or says it only works with R Pi. This is misleading and inaccurate. Just get one with that chipset from a vendor you are comfortable using. Cost should be under $10 even with current tariffs.
– MMDVM Hat (usually comes with a stubby antenna, for home use that will be fine). This also may say R Pi or only works for R Pi. As long as it has 4 spots to connect the TTL to Serial to the MMDVM board that are labeled: 5V, TX, RX, GND, you can make it work. 3.3V is not used. Cost is typically under $30.

TTL to Serial

HAT:

Put both in your cart, check out, and wait for it to show up. Once here, we have to assemble it. While not hard to do, depending on the devices you get, there is some trial and error involved.
Make life easy on yourself and refrain from attaching the antenna until the end. It makes it easier to deal with attaching the wires if you don’t have the damn thing sitting at an angle.

Step 1 – connect wires to the TTL to Serial Converter pins. Hopefully yours came with colored jumpers. If not, pick up a set with connectors that match your needs (M-M or M-F) based off the socket\pin configuration of the two devices. In my case, the jumpers I got were F-F but I had male on the TTL and female on the Hat. No joy. A quick trip to my box of Arduino crap solved this. I do not recommend soldering the wires until you have a working unit.
Step 2 – This is where it can get a bit sketch. I’ve seen the wire mapping done both way on what appear to be identical components. You might have to try both combinations to find the right mapping for the RX & TX connection. DO NOT REVERSE THE 5V and GND! That is volts in and ground. Reversing releases the magic smoke and devices get cooked. Not good. Connect the 5V wire on the TTL to the 5V pin\socket on the MMDVM. Connect the GND on the TTL to the GND on the MMDVM. Connect RX on the TTL to TX on the MMDVM. Connect TX on the TTL to RX on the MMDVM. Plug the TTL into your PC USB 2.0 or higher socket. If there are two lights lit on the MMDVM, one of them flashing\blinking, you are golden. If not – either only one lit or both solid light – you have to use the alternate mapping. Connect TX to TX and RX to RX between the TTL and MMDVM (disconnect from USB before moving wires) and try again.
Step 3 – Go into Windows Device Mangler (Manager) and confirm it has registered the COM port correctly as a USB to UART Bridge . Remember the COM port number, you’ll need it when we get to the software. If the device is missing and you have an “unknown USB” under other devices, you need to get the updated drivers for the chipset on the TTL. Download the official VPC drivers from Silicon Labs here, unzip, and install them for the “unknown USB” using the update driver dialog. Reboot the PC to ensure stability of the device and driver.

Step 4 – Go over to PA7LIM’s site and grab BlueDV for Windows. The download link isn’t obvious, see the image below for help. Download and install.

Step 5 – Run BlueDV. Once the main window loads, go to Menu >Setup.This looks a bit confusing because BlueDV has a lot of functionality, including working with Fusion, DSTAR, and NXDN besides DMR. It really isn’t bad once you understand the layout.
We are only going to cover DMR here.
1 Put in your CALLSIGN
2 Select the COM Port for your TTL device.
3 Make sure DTR is UNCHECKED
4 Make sure RX/TX Colors and Invert RXTX screen are checked.
5 Check with your local bandplan on acceptable frequencies for hotspots. For the Northeast USA, I’m using 43140000 (note, do not put in the decimal). The hotspot is simplex.
6 Enter in your lat\long
Move to middle section
7 Enter in your DMR ID in both fields. Typically they will be the same number unless you are operating more than one hotspot. For this tutorial we will assume you are using just this one.
8 Make sure QRG is set to 0 initially. This is to calibrate to the radio frequency, this is rare with this setup.
9 Check Enable as start if you want the hotspot to automatically connect at launch.
10 Chose your network. Only one network can be active at a time, unfortunately. For this one we will look at Brandmeister (BM). I don’t use Fusion and TGIF is dead-nuts simple, select TGIF from the dropdown and you are done. The default password is already set.
11 Set your DMR Master for your region. I find that 3104 is the most consistent for Northeast USA.
12 Set your password for Brandmeister, the one you setup in Self Care for Hotspot password.
13 Save.

14 Before we fire it up, a little maintenance should be done. I try to do this weekly. At the top of the main BlueDV window select the Update menu. At minimum select the two indicated. Update other options as needed for networks you use. Close all dialog boxes when completed.
15 The call database update will import Name, Callsign, Country, City, and DMR ID for contacts you hear when on DMR. This information will appear on your radio and on the BlueDV interface. If no record is found or if you haven’t updated after the user registered, only DMR ID will appear. Since new users are added daily, do this update frequently.

15 Slide the Serial toggle to the right. This will – hopefully – fire off the hotspot. If the COM is correct and the TTL to MMDVM TX\RX connection is valid (COM error will say on the screen Unable to Open COM PORT), the DMR (or DSTAR, FUSION, NXDN) toggle should automatically shift to the right after a second or two without user intervention. The appropriate blue box at the bottom should show connected to the network.

We are almost ready to rock. Grab your radio and select the zone and channel you setup for your hotspot. Typically we will use TS 2, Color Code 1 as shown below (example is using OpenGD77, your CPS might appear differently).

Using a hotspot is exactly like using a DMV repeater. You must “kerchunk” the channel by briefly pushing the radio PPT. This tells the server that you want to listen and the radio to listen.
TX connection should make the BlueDV screen RED

When BlueDV is receiving traffic, the screen will be green with contact details listed. There’s also a running log to the right of most recent contacts. This list clears at restart.

Your radio will show details as well. Your screen will look different dependent on model and firmware. Reference screen is Baofeng DM32.

Hope this was helpful and maybe will catch you somewhere on a TalkGroup.

KC1MUR – Scott

Before o

A journey of growth, thanks to radio.

I am a peace-love-hippy type complete with the ponytail. Those that are new, you’ll figure it out soon enough :). From day one, we have been about acceptance, understanding, sharing knowledge, support, and learning that we are worth it. If you need someone to berate you, attack you, make you feel stupid\lazy\broken\failure, then you are in the wrong place. This club got started because we saw the ugly side and it wasn’t working for us. If it wasn’t working for us, it probably wasn’t working too well for a few other people. Yes, there’s a really nasty, cruel, demoralizing world out there. There’s also a part of it between our ears, thanks to a lifetime of conditioning us into thinking we are the problem. I’ve learned over many trips around the sun on this rock that being the peace-love-hippy isn’t a bad thing. I wasn’t always this way, I still get anxiety and guilt over who I was and presented to the world in the past. That anxiety and guilt keeps me grounded. I hate to paraphrase Nickelback but it is how I’m reminded of who really I am: a human work-in-progress. You know what is missing, though? Shame.

I grew up in a Cathoholic … errr … Catholic household. Now, I know Catholics didn’t invent shame, but I’m pretty sure they perfected the weaponization of it. And that is exactly what Shame is. An external weapon. A taught vs innate emotion. Shame is control. Shame is oppression. Shame. Is. SHIT. Other emotions are good and not good -I refuse to call an emotion “bad,” shame you are the exception, you suck – we either project out or lock inside. Shame is an emotion that comes from the thoughts we have about how someone else thinks of us. It might be inside, but it starts outside of us, usually a young age. When shame is weaponized, it is used to control us, to force us to punish ourselves. We know that no matter how mad the partner or parent or boss is, they cannot punish us nearly as well as we can do it to ourselves. They know it too. It is a double-barrel hit of punishment: we beat ourselves up and they get to be disappointed or mad at us so not only are we getting all this bullshit inside telling us we are garbage, but we get it full in the face, too. To compound this, shame we feel is based of a perception of what we believe someone else is thinking and feeling about us. We don’t know the reality, nor do we know the motivation. We cannot, we are not them.

Bear with me, I have some touchy-feely shit to get through and I promise, I will relate it to radio. See, there’s even a picture of one.

See what I did there? I don’t even know you yet I have already assumed I know what you are thinking. We do it all the time. There’s no way I can know what you are thinking, I just know how I think I would be thinking if I was you thinking. Too many thunks in that sentence, but that is the point. You are unique, just like everyone else, to everyone else. No one sees you the same as someone else or how you see yourself. They cannot. They are not you or the person next to them. They know what they see, what they feel, what they touch, what they smell, what they hear. Those are all “they,” not you. Some may say they “witness” you, but witnessing implies a relationship to truth. What is missing is the part of what they perceive that could separate truth from belief: motivation. Motivation is a slippery little bastard.

You are sitting outside on a lovely summer evening, staring at the most beautiful sunset of the year. Or, you spot a doe with her fawn across the road and you just cannot take your eyes off it. Does the sun care you are staring? How about Bambi’s mom? Is it creepy? Is it full of ill intent? Does the sun feel threatened by you? What if instead you were staring at your attractive neighbor? Different, right? I bet they would have a feeling one way or another. Maybe they are creeped out. Maybe they feel threatened. Maybe they are aroused. Their reaction is based off what they are guessing is your motivation, and those guesses are based off their life experiences and trauma, not yours. Your thoughts could be “damn, they are good looking but why in the hell are they wearing those ugly Crocs?” Awkwardly, you notice you got caught staring and all thoughts of the Crocs are gone, replaced by embarrassment – shame – for getting busted, even if why you were looking was innocent. Their perception of you, their thoughts around your motivation for staring could be “crap, where is my pepper spray!” Your belief that you know what THEY are thinking – and it isn’t good because staring is considered shameful – just turned innocence on its head. You made them uncomfortable. Or did you? You don’t know, you are not them. Stop selecting damaging validation from others. I’m not saying stare at everyone, that is kind of creepy :). I’m saying when you feel the need to punish yourself based off what you believe someone else is thinking, stop. Think about what YOU are thinking and be real with yourself. If you are in the wrong, admit it. Record it mentally. Do better next time. The moment is already gone, carrying it with you for the rest of your life is as useful as carrying the binky you had when you were an infant: it doesn’t make sense.

So how does this all relate to radio? Where am I going with this? Toxicity in the hobby and the damage it does. We’ve seen it, some of us more than others. It can anger us, depress us, shame us. I’m early GenX, I was an awkward, weird, annoying boy at the height of the 70’s CB craze. I had two friends in the neighborhood, Robbie Baker who would camp out with me in the front yard summer nights in my little pup tent, talking about BJ and the Bear, Smoky and the Bandit, The Dukes of Hazzard, Convoy and pouring through Heathkit catalogs by flashlight with our little Channel 14 RadioShack walkie-talkies. The other friend, Ricky Thompson, his dad had a CB base station with a massive vertical antenna in the front yard. His dad? Not a friendly guy. Looking back, I realize that his issues probably started with serial abuse as a child (passed on to my friend on the daily), fleshed out someplace in Southeast Asia from things no one should have ever seen, and piled on by coming back with no marketable skills but a whole shitload of trauma. When I was 9, he just scared the shit out of me. We’d listen to Ricky’s dad talk to other men when they moved from Channel 19 over to 14. I remember his handle was “Ipana.” If you are boomer or early GenX, you might recall that was a toothpaste brand. Always thought it was a stupid handle, especially since Ricky’s dad had no teeth. One night, full of Reese’s cups, grape soda, and more courage than self-awareness, we – and by “we” I mean “I” – keyed up when they were talking.

That went as well as you are probably assuming. He shredded me. Ripped three new openings in my backside so I could take a dump in four directions at once and proceeded to point out every single thing about me that was weird, awkward, and annoying. The list was long. Most was accurate, I’ll admit now. At the time it scared the shit out of me. I would still listen, but I never touched the PPT again, even when the guys and I played war out in the woods and brought the radios with us.

My obsession with radio was shelved when I got my first dirt bike a year or so later. The experience with Ricky’s dad pushed aside for a KX-125 and a Bell helmet. Motorcycles stuck with me until I became and EMT, but that is a story for another time. What I didn’t realize is that fearful, demoralizing experience with Ricky’s dad was still there decades later, but now it brought its friend Shame with it. Those two bastards came very close to me leaving the hobby days after my callsign posted in the ULS.

It was March 2020. We all know what was going on then. I was a volunteer EMT with a rural ambulance service. There was talk about things maybe getting locked down. Everyone was stocking up on things they never thought they’d need a metric ton of (and probably didn’t need a metric ton of but humans are flawed). The world – as least those who had critical thinking skills – was concerned, but not yet scared. My wife only watches horror movies, with zombies being the genre of choice. Yeh, we knew where this could be going. We prepped early and better than most. With that came the thought of comms. Being an EMT, I was tapped into the county, but not the world around me. I thought about those Heathkit catalogs and was saddened to find out they shut down decades ago. So like any intelligent person, I got a Baofeng UV5R (hold on while I get my tongue out of my cheek) and prepped for my Tech exam. A week of memorization and I passed it. I was on the radio all the time with the rescue squad, getting on the air with 2m was in the bag. Problem was, that bag was wet and what was in it was heavy. I have ADHD. My brain works faster than my mouth and my ears. I struggle with annunciation and retaining audio information. To make that bag a little heavier, the county used Able Baker phonetics from WW2, not NATO. Shame ripped that bag wide open the first time I keyed the mic. I went to say “KC1MUR – KILO CHARLIE ONE MIKE UNIFORM ROMEO” and what came out was “KC1MUR KING CHARLIE ONE MIKE UNCLE ROGER” sounding like it was spoken by a mouth full of Novocain and gauze. The immediate response was “Whoever is calling that doesn’t know how to talk, stay off the radio. Stupid mush mouth retard.” That night in the tent in the yard hit me with a force I wasn’t expecting. Though I was alone in my car, no one could see me, the shame I felt was overwhelming. I shut off the radio, got out of the car, and just stared at the woods for a while. I collected myself eventually, got back in the car, and thought “I’ll just turn it on and listen, no harm in that.” Ever notice when you say “no harm in that,” it’s a lie? The conversation on the repeater was about how newbies need to stay off the air and let the adults talk until they get out of Special Ed. Off went the radio. When I got home, it went in a box. It stayed there for 3 years. I still wanted to be involved in radio. I bought more. I programmed them. I turned them on. And off. I made antennas. I built interfaces. I spun up a dedicated computer and a dedicated laptop just for radio work. I spent money and time towards a hobby I was petrified to be a part of.

All this time, I watched the world burn. I watched our President belittle people like me. Belittle people not like me but struggling like me. People who didn’t deserve this shit. People who were just trying to get to the next day. Anyone that wasn’t him. And something broke inside. I realized my avoidance was self-medicating. Self-medicating with anything is at best a fleeting solution. No one wakes up one day and says “you know, I don’t want to be happy, successful, and at peace. Nope, I really want to just watch shit go sideways.” Yet we do it anyway. Self-preservation is a powerful instinct, but it can cloud our judgement. We draw the link between our present days’ emotional triggers and painful past experiences. We are confronted with a painful gap between our intellectual understanding of our situation and how we continue to feel and react to life. We live in a culture that encourages fixing things as quickly as possible, the fallout be damned, and we desperately try to make the flaws and holes go away. There’s a line in the Shinedown song “Symptom of Being Human” that goes “pack up all your baggage\place it in the attic\where you hope it disappears.”
TRUTH.
We react with what we know has given us relief – if only temporarily – in the past. The primal part of our brain isn’t all that up on the whole planning for the future or long-term ramifications thing, it just cares about getting through this current crisis. The more we try, the more we do, the more frustrated we get. We continue to cycle back and forth between resenting our past and fearing our future. In the quest to calm the demons, we end up creating more of them. I needed to stop beating myself up for my lack progress, my death grip on shame. It didn’t matter if I could have done something different or made better choices sooner. Both of those were false, a shameful illusion. The truth is, I could not change until I could.
Neither can you.

Every single moment of our lives, we are doing the very best out of what we know, what we’ve experienced, and what we have just to survive to the next moment. The resentment, depression, despair, addiction, the destructive eating, the dysfunctional relationships with people and objects, are all serving a necessary – usually with unhealthy ramifications – function and have a reason to be there. They are our survival strategies; without them, we would not have been able to keep going. Saying in bed all day because you just can’t get outside of your head sucks, but you made it through the day on this side of the grass. That’s a win. This may sound like an excuse or enablement, but our resistance is nothing but a result of years of conditioning that had led us to believe pushing hard and being self-critical is the only way to improve anything. Just because that was how we got to where we are, doesn’t mean that’s how we need to stay here. There is a way out, it just doesn’t always appear with big arrows pointing at it. It can take time to slow down, wipe the crap away, and see it.

You might have seen this before: be the person your dog thinks you are. That’s wrong. You are the person your dog thinks you are. You just don’t see that person. To your dog, you are the center of their world. You are the most important human on the planet. You are the core of all they trust, all they love, all they depend on. You are already that person, you just need to see it too. Of all the perverted, malignant manipulation of this planet humans have done, dogs just might be one of the few things we almost got right. They trust you even when you don’t trust yourself. Cat people, I’m sorry. Your tiny terrorists are different. When humans tried to domesticate them, they looked as us and said “THE HELL YOU WILL” and proceeded to domesticate us. Don’t look at me like that, you know it is true. :).

The more we learn to accept, forgive, trust, depend on, and understand ourselves, the closer we come to peace. That means we need to cut ourselves some slack when we make a mistake. We need to look at ourselves and recognize that one poor choice can lead to many, but no matter how many we make, what we do is not who we are. What people think we are is not our reality. We matter, not despite all our flaws and inconsistencies, but because by having them, they are our force to move forward. We can learn just because what we did today wasn’t successful, it is over, in the past, and other chances to do things different are in front of us. We can look at ourselves each day with compassion for ourselves instead of despair. We need to learn growth is not linear, that peace cannot exist without first recognizing discomfort, if there was nothing ever wrong, there’d be nothing ever right. Find the simple successes in each day and bask in them.

When I finally accepted that it was shame – not some impossible personal failing – that put that radio in a box, I moved forward. This is where digital data and digital voice modes became my vehicle on the road to internal redemption. I started first communicating with Winlink and APRS bots. At first it felt lame, then I recognized that while I was talking to a bot, I was also getting used to syntax, operation, and actually using my radios for something beyond sitting on chargers. I moved to APRS\Winlink email and SMS messages – mostly to my wife as one would do with their best friend – until I had several different setups capable of doing so in just about any situation. I should mention that I’m an introvert – ISFP – and this does tilt how I use radio. I have no desire to DX, collect contacts, contest, or do activations. I don’t find it enjoyable. I rarely speak in any situation without a purpose that means something to me. Others are not built that way which is why the hobby is so great. After tackling data, I discovered DMR. This was huge for me. No, I still won’t rag chew with a stranger on the other side of the world, but I will check in on nets now. Having the name and the callsign right there in front of me on the screen, holding it with my eyeballs, removed half of my key fright. I no longer have to stress about trying to understand, retain, and recite a callsign that my brain is hellbent against while formulating what I’m going to say. I will even respond to a CQ if someone is doing SOTA\POTA, but only if no one else is keying up. I’m getting there. I’m perfectly aware of being imperfect. Oh, and I use the NATO phonetic now :).

All of the above is why helping Todd get AARN off the ground became a mission for me. I hope that I can use this community of like-minded hams to help me go the next step: having a conversation on the radio with someone. We both hope you know just how much it means for each of you to have come here.

KC1MUR – Scott