For those of you who know what Amateur Radio is, I’ve been a licensed ham for about 20 years. In the past few decades Amateur Radio has been on the decline. Increased urbanization has made most communities hostile to RF antennas and it’s a heck of a lot easier to just send an email to a potential friend in Djibouti than to key a message in Morse Code. And cell phone tech makes Ham radio gear feel pretty quaint.

It would be cool to keep the call sign since the renewal fee is only $6. But the renewal form says “Pursuant to the Debt Collection Act of 1996, the FCC now requires submission of your Social Security Number (SSN).” I don’t think I need to dump my SSN into yet another database, thanks.

Besides all the cool stuff these days is going on in unlicensed spectrum.

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