My dad used to be into scanning police conversations, and I recently found his old top-of-the-line 1994 scanner in an old box in our basement. I spent a weekend trying to fix it — taking it apart, trying to replace parts, etc. I eventually gave up in frustration, but before running out to buy a new scanner my wife suggested I ask to borrow one from a co-worker first.
So I did. I put out an email to all the engineers in my office, and one of them lent me a nifty handie-talkie (a Yaesu VX-3R) and a giant instruction manual. Sure enough, I was able to scan, but was curious about the “PTT” button he told me not to push. Next thing I know I’m listening to net meetings over local repeaters! A few days later, I find myself reading the ARRL Technician textbook, and thinking “hey, this is basic high school physics!” Not so hard at all.
I’ll be taking the Technician exam in a week or two, so I can buy my own HT. But my goal is to (probably) upgrade to General and put up an antenna somewhere, so I can use HF to chat with specific friends across the country who I only (just this week!) discovered were licensed hams.
It’s sort of incredible — ham culture is like this ancient geeky brotherhood that secretly infiltrates all other nerdy hobbies. I’m discovering swaths of friends and acquaintances (gaming friends, Google co-workers, open source people) who all have callsigns, sort of a secret handshake. And reading about the culture in the exam textbook is fascinating — someone ought to write an ethnography of this group!
This is my plug for my friends’ new card game. If you’re not a boardgamer geek, you may want to move on.
We first met Chris and Clare about four years ago, as they were neighbors in our Chicago neighborhood. We were thrilled to discover they were gamer geeks like us, and our two toddlers became great friends too. Clare is an anthropologist, and Chris is an ER doctor. And together they designed a great new card game based on their travels.
This is the story they tell (no doubt retold and twisted a hundred times): for Clare’s PhD field work, they moved to a rural area of the Andes mountains in Bolivia. While Clare did research and interviews, Chris took up a job in a local medicine clinic. One day somebody came into the clinic with a headache, and one of the other doctors sent him away with antibiotics. “Why did you give him antibiotics for a headache?” Chris asked. Answer: “Well, that’s what we had today.” Hmmmmm.
So Chris got inspired. He created a hilarious card game where each player takes on the role of a corrupt doctor. Everyone is dealt a patient with some sort of ailment, along with a hand of completely random “treatment” cards. The object of the game is to play as many treatments on your patient so as to make as much money as possible, but without killing the patient. (It’s tricky, since some treatments help, some harm.) The game is brilliant and hysterically funny, and I’m thrilled they’ve finally announced a professional printing of the game! That’s right, you can order it right here from their site. I’m going to do everything I can to get independent game stores to stock it. 🙂
