Dots, Dashes and Dads

            Of all the books on my library shelves, few have more meaning to me than an old dingy volume the size of a large city phone book. The pages are faded and the print is so small that my aging eyes have trouble getting a focus on the letters.

            But there it is. On page 395 of the 1962 Amateur Radio Callbook is the evidence that, at age 12, I had received a license to operate an Amateur Radio station.

            My father was so proud of his son. I had accomplished something that he had never been able to do. My father was a highly skilled radio repairman and could build transmitters and receivers. But one requirement to obtain an amateur radio license was the sending and receiving of the International Morse Code. Try as he might, he was never able to learn the code.

            So it was with great pride that he would sit and watch me separate the dots and dashes into meaningful words. There, in the glow of heated vacuum tubes, I would click away, communicating with other stations around the world long before the days of the internet or cell phones.

            Today, 45 years later, I still sit in front of a ham radio. It’s a modern set now, without the warm glowing tubes. And I’m doing something that does not seem special any longer. With the internet, anybody is able to chat with people anywhere on the planet. Pictures and video can be exchanged with a speed and quality we never dreamed of in the 1960’s. It is no big deal.

            Except for me. I still choose to tap out the dots and dashes with an archaic telegraph key, chatting with like minded “hams” around the world. It’s primitive. It’s slow. To many, it’s downright silly.

            But it has a very special meaning to me. Although my dad passed on many years ago, I cannot sit in front of the radio tapping out the dots and dashes, without feeling that pride return that visited me so many years ago. It is as if my dad was standing right behind me whispering “way to go”, and I honor him with every click.

            The Federal Communications Commission has recently removed the Morse Code from the license requirements.  Yet I will continue to use it. My dad would be proud! ...-.- -.. . N8JLC