If you get a group of t-girls together, in the UK at least, you won't have to wait long before the subject of militaria crops up. It's part of the stereotype.
Mrs. J and I spent Sunday lunchtime in a very nice pub in Wiltshire with a group of t-girls, four of us and two partners. I think I may have stumbled on another stereotypical facet of the Average British T-girl, amateur radio. Around the table we had a G7, a G1 and a G0. I have to admit to letting my licence lapse a few years ago so I was unable to contribute much.
It's getting more and more as though I should be looking at my acquaintances and asking "Would the non-trans ones please stand up"?
Must dig out my black RSGB brooch...
ReplyDeleteSuzie G1...
My dad is G1... Athough we think there was a mixup as his license should not give him G1 as far as I know.
ReplyDeleteI tried for mine, but 10 GCSE's and two City and Guilds in one year just don't work... I got one of the two required exams, but failed the other. (Still better than failing the GCSE's)
Stace
CQ CQ... QTG?
ReplyDeleteMmmmmmmmm.......strange people you knock about with. Whenever I met with other t girls it was all about fashion, cosmetics, sex and music with a smattering of other subjects.
ReplyDeleteShirley Anne xxx
I just saw a personalized license plate here in Arizona that was specifically designed for Amateur Radio Operators (our cars have personalized plates for ASPCA supporters). I wasn't aware the community was that large to support their own brand of license plate.
ReplyDeleteFunny you should mention that. I'm a KØ. I know another ham that is transexual. I was first licensed in 1964.
ReplyDeleteWith the advent of mobile phones, internet message boards, and instant messaging, I'm surprised that there are any amateur radio operators left. I think at one time here in the US, you had to learn Morse Code to get a HAM radio license. Does anyone still use a key?
ReplyDeleteMelissa XX
Ah, they're all coming out of the woodwork now! :)
ReplyDeleteI can think of at least two other bloggers with callsigns of their own too.
I have to say I was quite surprised to find tanks and aircraft appearing as topics of conversation when first it happened. And not just from the older among us either. I mean, I'm happy to talk about old cars and all, but there's a time and a place!
"I don't want to be a party-pooper, but I didn't go to all the effort to look like this to talk about Bren gun carriers!" :)
It's not the communicating per se that's the lure of amateur radio but the thrill of the chase. To work somewhere far away by chasing an elusive atmospheric condition for radio propagation, for instance. For me it was all about building stuff, usually exotic UHF and microwave kit that I never had a chance to use in anger because I lived in the middle of nowhere. Then the Internet happened, and suddenly a far better toy was in front of me.
Dah-di-dah-dit. Dah-dah-di-dah. Dah Dit Di-di-dit Dah....
ReplyDeleteWhoo-hoo. Could it be that my two worlds are far more intertwined than I ever thought??
Monica _/! K5..
I used to enjoy listening to the radio, tweaking the dial and catching broadcasts from Australia or Ankara or wherever, listening to the surge of the atmospherics... and listening to dramas playing out on the ship's radio as we chugged along, or the bored deckhands of unknown ships entertaining themselves with the microphone- "Philippino mooooonkey!"
ReplyDeleteThe title of your post caught my eye. I also used to be a ham. I say "used to" because I let my license lapse a couple of months ago. Seems like after I transitioned, I really lost interest in it... I haven't been on the air in five years.
ReplyDeleteI still love electronics though :)
Blimey, yet more!
ReplyDeleteI've not lost the electronics bug either, though I keep my exuberance in check in that direction these days.
@Dru, you reminded me of this piece from a while back.
The life of the bored shortwave listener was much better when I were a lad. No, really, back in the Cold War you could catch wonders like Radio Tirana proudly proclaiming that every Albanian village now had a tractor! Yes, I wasted my teenage years.
Hey, I too have heard Tirana. As I recall, they were doing things on the cheap so everything got repeated four times in four different languages. I also saw an exhibition of Albanian art at the Glasgow School Of Art in 1990, and it was hilarious; Stakhanovite workers standing in front of earth moving machinery, or relaxing in workers' cafes, with not one but *several* bottles of alcohol on the shelf behind the bar ("We have much selections!") and packets of cigarettes ("see, modern cigarettes, filters!") -there is no worse poverty than the poverty of the imagination, as that bloke said.
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot, you've just sent me off for a wallow in Socialist Realism courtesy of Flickr. Enver Hoxha telling it like it is to the lucky peasants. They all seem to be smoking and none of them have offered the Great Teacher a fag, the stingy b****rs!
ReplyDeleteA piece of amateur radio-Albanian crossover trivia, Radio Tirana was always easy to find because it was right in the middle of the 7MHz amateur band. International spectrum allocations don't work for isolationists.
Interesting how you Brit T-Girls seem to identify with this dah-di-dah thing. And, just what is a dah-di-dah, Jenny? Please enlighten me.
ReplyDeleteOh, and Monica's comment was rewarded with another follower of her blog...
Yeah, we're all very dah-di-dah, all airs and graces :)
ReplyDelete