[Westside]

Ham radio. I was first licensed about 25 years ago but never became active and let my license expire. Then a couple of months ago, I passed by Technician and General license exams. I have been busy putting together my "shack," but I am planning to operate mostly portable, with a battery operated transceiver and a "go bag." I thought ham radio was on the decline, but there are more than 700,000 licensed operators in the U.S., which is the biggest number ever.

I also read quite a bit of non-fiction, and listen to a lot of sci-fi via streaming Audible books in the car,

I had a class in high school that was taught by a teacher who was into the whole ham radio thing. We spent most of a semester prepping for the ham radio test or at least we were supposed to be prepping. I along with with about six other football players were in the class. We spent more time throwing pennies at each other, arm wrestling, playing table top paper football, etc than paying attention to the lessons. The first test was covering the Morris Code. The two gentlemen that he brought to administer the test started sending out codes. I started randomly writing down letters. I didn't know he was actually sending sentences. When they started grading my test, they just shook their heads for a few seconds and went on to the other tests. If I remember correcting, only a couple people passed the test.