10 Years of Service

10 years of service

As I reflect on serving this club as your President for 10 years, I have a flood of emotions, memories and thoughts. I have loved how we have worked together to achieve many common goals. The list is too long to even begin to address but during my tenure we have moved from an analog to a digital world in many ways. I started when we would have folding parties for our monthly paper newsletter at Ed Burckart’s house. Similarly, many of our radios and systems have gone digital. I have watched our club grow steadily while many others around us are floundering and even dying out. We are a great club and that is a testament to you, the members.

Personally, serving this club has been among the most rewarding activities I have done with my life. I loved the friendships, the education and the patience I have received from my fellow board members and from this club. I know I can be kind of a hyperactive, overambitious teenager sometimes and I am learning to slow town. Because of you, I much a better ham radio operator today than I was when I joined! 

One of my passions for this hobby, almost from the beginning, has been to devote time to pubic service events and activities. I just think public service puts our best face in the public’s eye. Otherwise, most of us work out of the dark corners of our basements, hovering over a transceiver and no one see us. So, at least with public service, people see who we truly are—talented, professionals, eager to help. With public service, we are visible.

We just finished working our 11th year supporting the Chicago Marathon. We recruited 150 hams from across the nation to help provide communication. It has been an incredible opportunity to build this team and it has given ham radio a real front row seat. I was invited to sit in the Mayor’s briefing for the event and saw first-hand how the organizers proudly proclaim the role that ham radio plays for them.  So that is the political side of this project, and it is a good story. It gives us credibility with the city and other governmental organizations.

Then there is the human side. From the beginning, my greatest concern would be that we would find enough people to staff the event. I was grateful to attract 62 people that first year, just barely enough to cover the field and since then we have been building on a solid core of about 100 returning people and many new faces. However, as I look down the road, recruitment continues to be a concern. There are many reasons for my anxiety, not the least of which is that many of our community are getting older and to ask them to stand outside for 12 – 15 hours can be a grueling duty.  Also, we are competing against those little letters I hate to see, “SK.” We lost a couple of good ones this year.

One of very our first volunteers recruited a team from Peoria, Illinois. Fritz Bock, WD9FMB, brought 4 fellow hams up every year. They stayed a hotel just outside of town at their own expense, worked the event on Sunday and drove home. For an organizer’s point of view, there is nothing better than to have folks like this step up and bring their own team.

Well, this past year, Fritz complained of some mysterious illness and out of caution, decided to not commit to the event. We did find a substitute for him, but by the time of the marathon we learned that Fritz’ health was indeed bad. He was diagnosed with stomach cancer and was in the hospital. By some quirk of craziness, the box of supplies that usually goes to the Leads was mistakenly sent to him. Somehow, from the hospital, Fritz called to tell me of the error and had already found a solution to the problem. That’s how Fritz rolled. To work alongside people like Fritz is what makes events like this so rewarding. He will be missed. So how do we groom the next generation of ham folks who have the same measure of skill and public service focus? That is a much tougher question.

Another very concerning trend—many of the repeaters that support this event were built by hard working and well positioned people who were able to place their club’s repeaters into key strategic locations.  As these folks retire and as their systems age, as their clubs shrink in membership, what is going to happen? It is not easy to secure a repeater location and harder to find RF engineers to service them. I have spent years trying to find a place on the south side as an alternative site for the Marathon and have run into resistance on many fronts.  Although money would go a long way to help solve the problem! These are real existential problems that our community needs to face. Events like the marathon demonstrates how a group, working together, can really make an impact. Some events, like the Boston Marathon, have moved almost entirely away from ham radio and built their own commercial radio network. Will that happen here? It could.

So, where does this leave us? I am still bullish that there are many ways we can play a role in public service. We need to prove ourselves every day by being resilient, prepared and willing to serve. We also need to continue to recruit new hams of every age and encourage a spirit of giving back. After all we exist only because of the generosity of the public, who has deeded great portions of the spectrum to us to experiment and use. 

So, while the NSRC is in sound financial shape, we have strong membership and great volunteers, we must look around to make sure we are keeping an eye on what is happening around us. We all have work to do to keep ham radio relevant and growing. I will continue to do my best.

Rob

K9RST