Foundations Of Amateur Radio

Foundations of Amateur Radio In our hobby there is a term "Elmer", referring to someone who helps new amateurs find their way inside the community, locate resources, understand techniques, etc. It's part of what we might consider the folklore of amateur radio. I started this with the intent to quickly introduce the concept of an Elmer and then spend some time talking about our own role in this adventure, but as is often the case, I was side-tracked by my own investigation. There is a push within the community to abandon the concept of an Elmer, that it's not real that it serves no purpose and that it's a recent invention and irrelevant to our community. Finding an Elmer today appears to be hard work, seeing the wood for the trees, finding a unicorn in this social media connected world. But as it turns out, Elmers are closer than you think. With a little searching, the person who is credited with introducing the word Elmer into the amateur radio vocabulary was Rod W9BRD. He was the author of a column "How'