This past weekend I took my amateur radio license exams. Ham radio has all the relevance and social cache of COBOL. So why take it up? The Amateur Radio Relay League has an opinion on that subject, which they outline in their entry-level Technician Class license manual, enticingly titled Now You're Talking!:

• You can talk with other hams over ranges of up to 50 miles with a hand-held radio that fits in your pocket!
  
• You can talk to people in other countries without paying for a long-distance telephone call!
  
• You can use radio-computer interfaces to type to other hams!
  
• And many other things that must have been pretty nifty before people could use cell phones, Skype, and instant messaging without having to pass a complicated licensing exam!

And on instant messaging you can swear like a sailor without getting your license revoked. At least that's what I hear.

Could it be the aura of "cool" that comes with being an amateur radio operator? For our answer, let's take a look at the September issue of the ham radio magazine of record, CQ:

The September 2006 issue of CQ, which is frequently confused with the similarly titled GQ. By blind people.

I guess that's not it.

In any case, last Sunday I went to FARFest, an annual hamfest in Maryland, where guys named Bud who have their callsigns inscribed on their mesh-backed trucker's caps can buy vacuum tubes from guys named Herb who wear too-tight t-shirts bearing the legend, "WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS: AMATEUR RADIO". There was actually a booth there with a machine that could embroider your callsign on a mesh-backed trucker's cap while you waited.

Sadly, I didn't have a callsign yet, because I was there to take my exams. Not only did I take my entry-level Technician Class exam, but I took the more advanced General Class exam on the same day. This required me to pass a Morse code test. COBOL actually does look pretty cutting edge when compared to Morse code; news of Wild Bill Hickock's death was transmitted by Morse code. I studied for the code test on my iPod, and the irony was not lost on me.

I passed all three tests, and on Monday the FCC assigned me a General Class license with the callsign KI4RDI, suitable for embroidery.

So why did I do it? I can't really say. In an unrelated story, I recently got a catalog in the mail from a company called "Extreme Geek". I know what you're thinking, because I assumed the same thing, but it was addressed to me. Weird, huh?