Hi Dave,

I don't really want to post the others' bios inasmuch as we never really wanted to make this Community about us. It really is about the members. This said, it's fair to ask. Most of the people at the root of this project are military, with a couple in electronics, and software. About half are retired, the other half are still making an honest living. Most of us have had rather uninteresting lives 😎 The most exciting is probably that one of us - not me - was a B-52 pilot. Pretty cool right? Oh, and we have a fife player, seriously. Imagine getting paid to play the fife. Of course, we'll gladly tell you much more when we're next face to face but you can take one thing to the bank, we love being amateur radio operators. My own experience in radio dates back to growing up in northern Canada where my dad used radio as the only form of communications. I used to carry a radio on me when I went hunting so that my mom could call me back in time for dinner. We used HF to call the doctor or order from the Sears mail order catalog. Those were, obviously, the days long before cell phones or satellite links. If you lived in a remote community, as remote as we did, HF was the only way you got a message out. Please note that a couple of the seeders of the project are not in the photo above. One had a good excuse, he was living in Hawaii at the time. Now for the punch line, he moved back from Hawaii to Richmond. My wife thinks he's nuts.

That's it for now...

I wanted to add something to this post. It hit me as I was replying to a member's support ticket. I was staring at the site's banner and was wondering how we had really come up with those three words: conversation, camaraderie, and collaboration. What did they really mean, in plain English, as opposed to 'marketing' English.

I think what they mean to me personally, is that I was hoping that we could create a site — Ham Community — where hams actually became friends and got together more often to do the things we like to do in common. We're a special breed of hobbyists. We tinker, we meet, we operate, but our friendship rings tend to be rather small in diameter. My goal is to expand those rings, to forge friendships that last and mean something, similar to my high school friendships that have endured for literally 45 years since my graduation!

That's all, enough philosophy for one day. I just had this rare moment of clarity and wanted to share it. Now back to my usual stupor...

🥴