Amateur Radio is not your grandfather's hobby

  Amateur Radio is not your grandfather's hobby with 
  morse code keys in a dusty dark basement and 
  refrigerator size transmitters. Nowadays, Amateur 
  Radio is an exciting dynamic hobby that brings both 
  radio and computers together. Today's operator 
  combines computers, satellite operation, and state of 
  the art digital signal processing to communicate for 
  fun and even in emergency conditions when cell phones 
  do not work.

  Imagine, being able to see exactly where stations are 
  located simply through the tie in of computers and 
  radio and GPS. The Automatic Position Reporting 
  System (APRS) is used today by civilian volunteers in 
  Search and Rescue missions, the Civilan Air Search 
  and Rescue (http://www.casara.ca) use APRS today, to 
  help find downed aircraft using Amateur Radio. 
  (http://www.aprs.org)

  Amateurs communicate on a daily basis via Amateur 
  Radio built communication satellites. Using simple 
  equipment, anyone can talk via a satellite 
  (http://www.amsat.org) Amateurs as young as 10 can do 
  it, you can too! Amateurs also communicate with the 
  crew of the International Space Station (ISS) 
  (http://www.rac.ca/ariss) when their time permits. 

  During times of emergencies operators in this service 
  are able to communicate when other communications 
  systems fail. It takes time for the armed forces to 
  mobilise and set up backup communication in an area 
  struck by disaster, trained communicators are in your 
  community already set up to supply badly needed 
  outside communications. (http://www.emrg.ca) 

  Like everything else, the technology used by the 
  modern Amateur Radio operator is nothing like you 
  will see in the movies. Todays radios are amazingly 
  small compared to the equipment used even 10 years 
  ago. This is not your grandfather's hobby.

  For further information see http://www.rac.ca, 
  http://www.oarc.net

  (copyright 2004 Diane Bruce, VA3DB)