Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

Stuff gets done here

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  • Let the real learning begin

    Studying for months: Done

    Taking practice tests: Done

    Showing up for an actual test: Done

    Getting a 94% passing grade: Done

    Now I have an FCC-issued technician level license and a call sign: KK7JQN.

    Things people do with their ham radios: volunteer on emergency neighborhood response teams, provide communications at long-distance running events. Lots of other things get done of course, as the ARRL, the national amateur association notes.

    This month, two days after passing the license test and two days before getting my license, I helped out as a scribe at our neighborhood’s monthly communications practice session. It’s a couple of hours of folks ensuring their gear is working and that they can be heard by each other. I won’t say it was the most fun two hours I’ve ever spent. Three of us set up radio and antennas at a high point in the neighborhood under a tent on a rainy chilly night and proceeded to do check-ins with emergency volunteers. By the time we were done, we were cold. By the time we had loaded out afterward, we were soaked. But we added one more layer of radio experience and practice to a group of folk who are prepared to be helpful should a massive disruption, like a subduction zone earthquake or a power outage hit our region.

    More fun last summer was supporting the runners at the Waldo 100K Ultramarathon. Of course, back then, I had just begun my studies, and I didn’t really know what I was doing aside from noting runner times at the aid station we supported about half-way into the grueling race. But I got to see how ham operations work, how moving an antenna just a few feet can make a big difference, how seriously hams take transmitting information exactly as they receive it, and how careful those receiving the information are in confirming what they hear.

    When I started down this road, I was only doing it because my wonderful partner asked me to. Now I’m excited to begin being a participant in this community.

    What’s next? Bring on the actual radio gear.

  • Keep calm and study on

    Eleven days out from taking the Amateur radio technician license test, the anxiety begins to set in. I’m fairly confident that I haven’t worked this hard to acquire knowledge outside of my comfort zone since college.

    Consistent daily review over the past three months of the various categories of information provided in the National Association for Amateur Radio’s manual has given me some small measure of understanding, helpfully supplemented by my sweetie, already a licensed amateur, who also happens to be an electrical engineer.

    In my effort to calm the growing nerves I went looking for online guidance about effective study habits to help me over the finish line and I discovered that I’ve been doing many of them all along. Here’s the list:

    • Quiet place, consistent time for study. First thing in the morning, coffee in hand, I sit down with the study guide.
    • Have a goal: I’m studying to pass a 35-question test that requires a passing score of 26 correct answers. The manual lists all of the possible test questions. And the ARRL web site offers practice tests, you can take repeatedly, which I do.
    • Take written notes. When I miss questions on the practice test, I write them down in longhand and then search out the relevant section of the manual for review. Research has shown that writing things down is a good way to help embed concepts in the brain.
    • Stepping away periodically. I’ve been known to push a little too hard. But you can’t push learning, especially in areas well outside your knowledge base. Things come over time. I knew I couldn’t cram at the last minute on this effort. And I haven’t.

  • My curious mother

    It’s hard to guess which of us was more surprised. In our most recent book group, Irene Palmer asked me if I had read “House Made of Dawn” by N. Scott Momaday. Happens I had, thanks to a literature professor committed to diversity in the literary canon she taught.

    But hold on there, Irene. How did you happen on this literary treasure, published back in 1969 that won a Pulitzer Prize and established Momaday on the literary scene. A Kiowa who grew up in New Mexico among the Pueblo and Navajo, Momaday is credited with nudging Native American literature into the mainstream.

    Irene discovered Momaday when he was mentioned in a Ken Burns documentary on World War II. It turns out that Momaday, among many awards, received the Ken Burns American Heritage Prize in 2019, which honors “an individual whose body of work has advanced our collective understanding of the indomitable American spirit.” That’s Irene, she takes notes and searches things out.

    I haven’t read Momaday since my college days, but I kept my paperback of “House Made of Dawn” among the books I couldn’t part with (Terry Tempest Williams, Willa Cather, John Nichols, Wallace Stegner, Tony Morrison, Edward Abbey…). But unlike the books from those other authors, I didn’t go back and reread it.

    Until now.

    Thanks to my mother whose curiosity — always far-ranging — has lately pulled her into the realm of fiction. Previously, she has preferred nonfiction — biographies, history, philosophy, religion.

    What we are remarking on, as we read Momaday, is the poetic cadence of his story-telling. It should be no surprise that this well-regarded author has several volumes of poetry. I expect we’ll go there next. Unless my curious mother finds some other path to wander.