Sunday, October 10th 2004
Update by: Clyde McPhail
Once again, we delve into our favorite topic: ARES. Why do we pick on ARES? Are we ARES washouts? Do we wish we were of ARES calibre? Are we, perhaps, jealous in some way? Sometimes I often feel bad for picking on ARES - I mean, it's easy to point to someone with an obvious mental illness and illustrate their flaws, but it doesn't make you any better of a person to do it. To be honest, maybe we pick on ARES a little too much. But, after we make mention ARES and their many shortcomings on this site, we always end up getting letters from our readers thanking us for shedding light on ARES. Quite a few of our readers are in the real Emergency Services - we are honored that so many of our loyal fans are firefighters, paramedics/EMTs and Police Officers, all of whom have to deal with ARES on a daily basis in the execution of their duties. Purple Zero, for the freak that he is, is a Paramedic by trade and knows all too well what we're talking about here (and has countless funny ARES/RACES stories). Me - I'm not involved in anything of the sort... I'm just a commentator, but I calls them hows I sees them.
Now - what is an ARES member without his uniform? We can't have the dellusion of being someone important without actually being able to dress the part! So, today we take a nice look at what ARES is wearing these days.
A lot of ARES here in the US have taken to wearing yellow shirts with all sorts of ARES insignii on them. The Ventura County ARES?RACES club describes the yellow shirts as such:
"The yellow shirt is to be worn by ARES/RACES members to all ARES/RACES activities involving local and county governments, law enforcement, hospitals, Red Cross, and the general public so that people know who we are. A yellow shirt was specifically selected because those wearing the shirts are easily spotted in a crowd or at an emergency site. During an emergency you will commonly hear emergency personnel being directed to "go see the people in yellow shirts, they will help you with your communication needs". The yellow ARES/RACES shirt has become a recognized uniform by those that we serve."
Honestly - what communications needs does ARES really offer? What would have to happen at an accident scene for anyone, victim or responder, to go "Fuck! Get me the nearest Ham radio operator?" HAM equipment isn't type accepted for Emergency use..... Amateurs, no matter how many uniforms they own, are not permitted to transmit on emergency frequencies....... Many larger emergency services (and more and more smaller ones) use Trunked radio systems, some of which are even digital and/or encrypted (both of which are totally inaccessible to hams). Some ARES groups have their own mobile command vehicles full of radios and antennae. Why? Other than traffic control at parades, what really does ARES do? What 'communications support' do they really provide? If you can help us with this question, please e-mail me at [email protected]. It would be greatly appreciated.
There are some people that seem to like their uniforms a bit too much. A reader from the Toronto, Canada area (It's not Bryan, I swear) sent us this photo and a story. This handsome fellow is Lt. James Organ VE3EMT, apparently a legend in Toronto's hamsexy circles (he's got the EMT callsign, but for the record, he's never worked as an EMT, police officer, or anything of that sort). He is very well known to the local emergency services as being an enormous wannabe, even moreso by local hams who either know of him or his reputation. Here's a story submitted by our contact, who for certain reasons would like to remain nameless:
"Look at me, I am an official wannabe uniform." The guy is a loon. I did hear he was asked never to operate the special event station at the Ontario Science Center. He used to operate it all the time, so I have to wonder why he asked to leave....
Anyhow if you ever get to the local stinkfests (my favorite BO factory is Newmarket in November) he is usually there, wearing cotton sweat pants, tucked into black dress socks and shoes. But now that he has an uniform, he will be wearing that....
Next thing you know, someone will be offering Mess Kit for hams to wear. Maybe even get swords, though most hams are too cheap to spend the $800 or so for a sword.
One of the funniest stories, was when his handheld was run over. The time frame was the earlier 90's and James has driving cab. (I think it was Beck's) when another was being robbed at a Yonge/Grosvenor. (10-33..Cabbie needs assistance....knife shown...) He was at Yonge/College with a fare. He slams on the brakes and parks the cab on Yonge, jumps out of the car, and starts to run up the middle of Yonge. The time of day was 4 pmish, so traffic was heavy...as he was running, his handheld fell out of his pants onto the road. He stopped and started to turn around, when he saw this Caddy drive over the handheld and crush it. It was either a Radio Shack or ADI piece of crap. The image of this, still makes me chuckle. But then he moaned about the loss of the handheld over various 2m machines (usually VE3TWR (ham repeater on the CN Tower) Then one of the friendly hams lent him an old handheld, so he could be cab mobile....
Apparently he's king of the local Toronto Hamsexy crew - he's also involved with Toronto ARES, which I am led to understand has an average age of 72.
I dunno man - ARES will always be a mystery to me. If anyone out there is involved in ARES, please feel free to write in and explain to me what role ARES fills in. Remember that any and all e-mails received will most likely end up on this site, so keep that in mind if you choose to write me. [email protected]. Until next time, kids.
Friday, October 8th 2004
Update by: Purple Zero
Here's a quick photo submission from Ben K7BEN:
Just as I was leaving the Free hamfest in Jacksonville, Florida I saw this car pass. I was just explaining to my friend and new ham, Mike KI4HCL what Hamsexy was. All the sudden I hear him say "now that is Hamsexy". Upon seeing the car I ran for my camera. After I snapped a few pictures I noticed the people staring at the vehicle. The car had Georgia tags and the people he parked near immediately started loading up. After about five minutes he realized that he was not going to sell any of that crap and left.
Thanks Ben! Here's a comment from Mark KB8UFF:
Do you have any idea of what you have a picture of here??? (October 4th 2004 Update, see below) Look very closely at the lines and the details. Note the ALL BLACK color and the size of the grip. This is one of the most powerful weapons in it's class. Any anarchist with any knowledge of imported pieces can tell you that what you have here is without question a genuine, possibly modified, Yaesu FT-50R!! Heaven forbid if that were to ever get into the wrong hands!
Haha. Very droll, Mark.
Keep your submisisons coming in. Photos, soundclips, story ideas, blithe attempts at wit, comments, questions, death threats, etc. Big or small we print it all. Send your nuggets to: [email protected].
And a friendly hello to the members of elightbars.org who have bee paying us a visit lately. Thanks for your kind words and please continue to visit! Remember - being hamsexy is never cool, and might get you on these very webpages.
Monday, October 4th 2004
Update by: Purple Zero
You havent' heard much from me lately because we haven't had a whole lot of submissions sent to us. So when the submissions dry up, you hear nothing from me.
But - ahoy... Submissions! It's always great when we get submissions - when we do they end up in my mailbox, forwarded to me from Bryan. I suppose he's too lazy or busy or something to do it himself, but without that I'd be out of a job, and forced to spend even more time cruising the backwaters of ham radio and anything else in this miserable existence of mine.... but I digress...
Wayne sends us a little gunsexyness. Any automatic weapon is easily able to cancel out the geekyness of the radio. Just look at the M14/MT1000 photo a few stories below this one, and you'll see what I mean. You can have 15 HT's on your belt and make it totally acceptable by also wearing an MP5 over your shoulder. Really, it's true. Try it out.
Keep the submissions coming in... [email protected]. We'll take anything.. no.. really.. anything.
Thursday, September 30th 2004
Update by: Clyde McPhail
It's pretty funny, but sometimes I get a kick about seeing where our site shows up on other sites on the Internet. Sometimes I just put HAMSEXY into Google and see what comes up, but the surest way is to check out the referrer logs.
The referral logs are simple... anytime someone visits this site from a link posted on a different site, the site they are coming from is normally recorded. This is a good way to see who our friends (and enemies) are, as well as to see who is illegally stealing our 
bandwidth.The referral logs are filled with the usual suspects - a few e-mail and usenet referrals, as well as the normal hundreds of referrals we get from QRZ.COM. Occasionally we'll get some odd ones - these can range from the mundane to the downright bizarre.
I was scanning the logs today, and noticed a link from what appears to be an Anime Japanimation appreciation site (I'm assuming of course, as I have no clue what Azumanga Daioh! means, although I think my Japanese grocer says it when I dropped a bottle of Pepsi on the floor and it exploded).
Now.... a little background before I go on.... as much as I can't stand Ham radio Dorks, nothing gets me going more than these Japanese Animation freaks. I mean, I have a strange fascination with the Japanese race as a whole (any society that is that reserved yet consistently produces such freakishly bizarre and sadistic pornography is worth a second look). Now, I'm not talking about the ones who watch the occasional episode of Sailor Moon or Ranma 1/2 or something and praise it's skillful art of animation, I'm talking about these freaks who LIVE THE LIFE. They learn a few words of mangled Japanese and try to work it into their lives, like KAWAII, OTAKU, KAIJU or DOMO, or putting the honorific suffix -chan after their name (shudder) . They have rooms, notebooks, clothes, backpacks, etc. adorned with decals and stickers from Japanimation. Some even engage in the wicked hobby of COSPLAY, which involves dressing up as your favorite Anime character (which is TOTALLY unacceptable and cannot be justified).
But.... I digress..
This Azumanga Daioh message board referenced this site in a thread discussing if it's members are nerds. Check out the poll results: 62% say No, they aren't nerds. I find that as a patently shocking display of denial as any I've ever seen. Unlike Ham Radio, where it's MARGINALLY possible to be in the hobby and not be a flaming nerd, there is NO WAYyou can actively participate on a board called Azumanga Daioh! and not be either a flaming homosexual or the world's biggest nerd. There just isn't a way. Just like you can't use the word "Meh" and not be a dweeb, you can't use ^_^ in a message and not be a huge geek.It just isn't possible. I'm sorry. It's almost as bad as being a Furry. Not quite, but close.
The person who posted Hamsexy.com on the thread is named Nancy. Upon reading Nancy's profile, I took note that she (and I hope to GOD that it's a she) runs a Yahoogroup called MOTOROLA_OTAKU, a Yahoogroup devoted to Anime and Motorola Radios. "If you want to complain about dubs and APCO-25 digital in the same post, then this is the place for you." Yeah, yeah.. I know... the mind boggles.
Now, the word OTAKU has an interesting Etymology. It originated in Japan originally as referring to obsessed amateur photographers with few social skills, but eventually the common usage evolved to refer to any reclusive, obsessive hobbyist. Maybe HAMOTAKU could be a common phrase (nah). According to Wikipedia: "This was further reinforced by the case of Tsutomu Miyazaki, a serial killer who raped four small children and ate parts of their bodies. He was revealed to be an otaku after his arrest in 1989."
Fitting, I suppose. I've seen several people at Hamfests whom I would never trust around my kids.
Anime... Urgh.
