My wife and I are home after an afternoon watching CalPoly Mustang baseball at Bagett stadium. I thought about Uncle DX with his regular column in Carl Smith, N4AA's The DX Magazine between innings. He wrote about the meaning of friendship and ham radio in the March/April 2013 edition of Smith's magazine. Uncle DX mentioned above else during his fifty years in the hobby that all signals return to personal friendships.
Today, we have anywhere, anytime social connections available to us with our wireless devices and personal desktop computers. I believe Uncle DX is teaching me an important lesson that has served him through the good and bad times. An avatar cannot replace the human connection as hard as the Masters of the Social Media Universe want me too believe.
Is Uncle DX connected to Twitter, Facebook, or Google Plus? Probably not.
I think Uncle DX is human connected. His network of real world friends reaches as far if not further than my social avatar driven network. I bet Uncle DX can pick up his phone and make things happen in less than one hundred and forty characters. I imagine his avatars are flesh and blood whose loyalty runs deeper than counting 4,000 plus Twitter followers.
Uncle DX suggested the most important piece of our hobby goes far beyond a shack full of equipment and heavy metal in the sky. He said meeting and making friends at club meetings, swapfests, and conventions is the trendy yet unmentioned aspect of our hobby. Uncle DX probably doesn't count a single avatar in his network.
My take away from his statesmen like wisdom for the next generation of torch holders is not to forget the real world value of real world friends.
I'd like to know who is Uncle DX whose monthly column can be found in Carl Smith, N4AA's The DX Magazine?