Ham-ology

My husband is a ham radio operator. We have strange wires going from our house to tall trees in the yard. At neighborhood gatherings I've met new neighbors that tell me stories of them watching my husband with a half filled water bottle tied to a wire and he is throwing it up in the air to catch taller branches or other wires-they are hysterically laughing at this point in the story and I'm mortified at what he is doing while I'm in the house...

I go to bed early and he retires to his ham-shack to contact other ham radio operators. As I lay in bed our home alarm system starts beeping...it took two nights for us to realize he was causing the alarms to beep because he was on a 'high-frequency'. (he thought it was funny!) We drive through neighborhoods and he points out other ham radio operators and I realize that they too have tall antennas and lots of wires. Who knew?

I thought I was alone in this techy world. Last week while on a walk I met a new neighbor whose husband runs a Sunday morning ham radio show with boat operators (I think that's what he does)...she started saying that their home alarms have been going off! She thought our husbands should meet! (I'm not sure this is a great idea...) The more I admit to people that he has ham radios, the more people tell me about their dads or uncles or grandfathers who are into this 'activity', 'craft' or maybe it's a 'sport'.

There are good things about Ham radio operators. They will help us during natural disasters. During Hurricane Katrina, the only way people could communicate for days afterwards were through ham radio operators. During the last huge Southern California fires, we sat listening to broadcasts through his radio. He has been trained in Emergency preparedness so I know we will be safe if there are any natural disasters in La Mesa!

My husband travels to Ham-ventions and other ham activities. He always wanted me to come up with jewelry for ham radio operator's wives...I couldn't imagine what this would even look like. What would I use to start a project? Then...last week, my neighbor, who's uncle is a ham radio operator popped in my workshop because she saw Morse Code jewelry using beads and thought it was perfect. So...while the beads were cute, it's not what I do. What would be vintage?


Then it hit me...

                                      'MOM' is hand stamped on a vintage heart-shaped spoon!

'XO' is spelled out with vintage dictionary 'dots' & 'dashes'

So...thanks Val, you inspired me!

Send mom your love for Mother's Day. Limited words can be stamped but truly a unique gift for other ham radio wives!