NEW DIRECTIONS RADIO

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Did the article on "Getting in Touch" in MOTHER NO. 23 excite you about the possibility of dialogue-at-a-distance via your own personal communication system? If so, you'll be happy to know that—in the best "MOTHER tells you how" tradition—we'll be around in this and future issues to help you add this particular alternative to the matrix of others you're putting together.

One-way media such as books and magazines are great...they've helped change my head about a lot of things. But we also need to rap, to engage in dialogue, to try our newly hatched ideas on other human beings and get their reactions and input I hope you'll join us in doing just that.

The emphasis in this column will be different from that of the ham magazines (which stress the mechanics of radio). Instead, New Directions' interest is people and their need to communicate. For us, the hardware exists as a means to a human end...an instrument to help us expand and develop our humanity through contact with many who would otherwise be out of reach. We'll use the technology, and learn what we must about it, but we'll think of it as a tool -like a knife or a plow or a stove—possesssing neither wondrous magic nor hidden devils.

Every technology has an effect on life and Mother Earth. What is the impact of ham radio? Well, a typical rig requires a few pounds of various materials for its creation, and an average power input of a hundred watts or so while it's being used (the same amount that's

needed to work a 100-watt light bulb). The equipment has a useful life of many years, and produces no emissions harmful to living organisms. Some large ham antennas are considered eyesores (as, on occasion, are windmills). Simple wire aerials, however, are seldom noticed.

The question of whether or not the human benefits of do-it-yourself radio are worth this price is a personal value judgment. Obviously, my evaluation is that they are.

GATHERING PLACES

The on-the-air meetings mentioned in MOTHER NO. 23 are underway. The New Directions Roundtable is a scheduled get-together in which an individual presents an interest or concern of his own and a group rap session on that subject follows.

Initially, presentations are on 14,253 kilohertz at 3 p.m. EST and on 7,163 at 5:30 p.m. EST, Sundays. Discussions begin immediately thereafter on 14,243 and 14,283 for the early session, and 7,163 and 7,233 for the later session. (if you're a ham who wants to get involved and you don't hear any of the above activity, drop me a line. Circumstances may have necessitated a change of time or frequency.)

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