In less than four hours I will be sitting in the J. Reuben Clark Building on the BYU campus taking a test to advance my amateur radio license.  There’s a chance my beard might make it beyond the invisibility filter my crutches will bring.

This is the test I spoke of about a month ago.

I’ve been studying, on and off, for more than a month.  Honestly, I was able to learn a lot, but there’s still much that I don’t understand.  There isn’t a good online resource for someone wanting to know why the answers are what they are, but loads of sites to tell you how to answer the question.

When I took my first amateur radio exam in October of 1995, there were two parts to the test.  I passed the first one, but failed the second one.  A month later, I passed the second one.  In both cases, I passed off of memorization.  I fear that if I pass this test, it will again be due to memorization.  I pass most of my practice exams online - barely.

All this studying and testing brings me back to a realization I had a couple months ago when I got back into the hobby.

I barely picked up a microphone in about ten years.  With all the advancements we’ve seen in wireless phones, computers, and technology, I expected to be blown away by all the advancements in amateur radio.  But I wasn’t.

While much of ham radio has seen advancement, it wasn’t the degree of advancement I expected.  When I put down my microphone around 2000, my cell phone was bigger than my portable ham radio unit.  Today, my cell phone is large only due to it’s capability as a smartphone, and radios don’t look or function all that differently than they did a decade ago.

Today, I should be able to find a device that doubles as a  miniature computer, works wirelessly with other devices, gives me smartphone-like capabilities with different applications, and allow me to plug in different hardware to accomplish multiple tasks.  A few radios come close to a shadow of this dream, but nothing really hits the mark.  I’m simply disappointed that amateur radio technology is nowhere near what my cell phone is - and they both work on very similar technologies.

So why, with my apparent disappointment, would I bother to take a test giving me the ability (despite the lack of equipment) to do more?

For two major reasons:

First, I set out to do this.  I am determined to start, continue, and complete something.  Especially while I’m stuck at home on disability, drugged up half the time, and in pain.  Especially now.  I have a lifetime of incomplete tasks.  This was one I wanted to complete fifteen years ago.  This is something within my grasp, something which I can show to myself and the world that I actually can accomplish something for myself.  If I can finish this, I can finish other things.

Second, I still enjoy amateur radio.  I wish the hobby were a little different.  The hams in Utah aren’t as conversational as people were in North Carolina.  Perhaps I haven’t met the right people yet.  Or perhaps I had friends in North Carolina that brought me together with the people I liked talking to.  I really wish I had a local radio friend with similar interests to “hang out” with.  But the real point is, I want to take this test to be a part of change for amateur radio.  If I have to be ambitious and start my own club to do it, I will.  If I have to find the most imaginative possibilities for amateur radio, I will seek them out and discover them.  I am determined to make it interesting to me, and to those around me.  Radio can continue to be an old man’s tinkering, or it can become an everyman’s enjoyment.

And that is why,in four hours, I will take the test.  I feel like I’m going against the odds here, but I will make the effort.  If I fail, I will try again.  If I pass, I will move forward.

There is one more level above the one I’m testing for tonight.  There’s the effort to modernize the notion of amateur radio.  There’s the indiscriminating nature of the hobby to bring in all walks of people, regardless of color, race, background, education, ability, and religion - something radio operators in Utah seem to have neglected.  And on top of that, I have my most powerful skill at my disposal: my voice, both audibly and written  - a voice that will make an effort to call for change where needed.

I may not understand all of the technology, but I understand that it takes all types to move the hobby forward.  My role will be that of the voice.

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