Borrowed from a Radio Reference forum post by WB4CS

A little something amusing that happened to me this week and thought I would share…

I was having dinner with a social group (not radio related) I’m a member of and met an older gentlemen from the UK who is now a resident of the US. It was his first time with the social group so we were all getting to know the new guy. He asked us what our hobbies were so I mentioned Amateur Radio. The conversation went something like this:

Him: “Oh, you mean ham radio, right?”

Me: “Yeah, that’s right.”

Him: “I’ve heard of that. Isn’t that a bunch of guys that just scream over the radio ‘Hello! Someone talk to me!’ and when they get a response they say, ‘I can hear you!’ and the other station says ‘I can hear you too!’ and then they talk about what radios they are using to talk to each other?”

Me: “Well, no, it’s not like that exactly. Well, maybe a little. But, hey!, we help out during emergencies such as severe weather.”

Him: “Oh, so then it’s one guy saying to another guy, ‘Hey, I can hear you! And there’s a tornado north of here.’ and the other guys says, ‘Hey I can hear you too! And I know about the tornado, I’m north of you. What kind of radio you got?’ ”

Me: “Well, no, not exactly. Umm, hey, so did you see that ball game last night?!”

For the rest of the night my girlfriend (who has no interest in ham radio but supports my hobby) kept looking at me and saying, “Hey, I can hear you!”

Ham radio operators, some people just don’t understand us