I stumbled upon this looking up information on magnetic receiving loops. Content is below, with my comments added.
1. When you look at a full moon and wonder how much antenna gain you would need.
2. When a friend gets a ride from you and remarks that you have a lot of CBs in your vehicle, it turns in to an hour long rant on how ham radio is not CB radio. (Not quite… but I have had people ask if that’s a “CB” on my bike, and I’ve responded no, it’s an amateur set.)
3. When someone asks for directions, you pause, wondering if long or short path would be best.
4. When you can look at a globe and be able to point to your antipode (and you know what an antipode is).
5. Your cell phone ring tone is a Morse code message of some kind. (Yep… my phone taps out “VK4MSL”)
6. You have accidentally said your Amateur Radio call sign at the end of a telephone conversation. (Almost did this once leaving a phone message back when I had a F-call… almost blurted out “VK4FSJL clearing the frequency”)
7. Your favourite vacation spots are always on mountain tops.
8. You notice more antennas than road signs while driving your car. (I do notice antennas a lot more these days when I’m riding the bike)
9. You have driven onto the shoulder of the road while looking at an antenna.
10. Porcupines appear to be fascinated with your car. (We don’t get porcupines in Australia and echidnas are rare in suburbia.)
11. If you ever tried to figure out the operating frequency of your microwave oven.
12. When you look around your bedroom of wall to wall ham gear and ask: Why am I still single? (This bloke can see his bedroom wall?!)
13. The local city council doesn’t like you.
14. You actually think towers look pretty.
15. Your family doesn’t have a clue what to get you for Christmas, even after you tell them.
16. Your HF amplifier puts out more power than the local AM radio station.
17. The wife and kids are away and the first thing that goes through your head is that no one will bother you while you call “CQ – DX” a few hundred times.
18. When you pull into a donut shop and the cops there on their coffee break ask if they can see your radio setup.
19. You refer to your children as your “Harmonics”.
20. Your girlfriend or wife asks: “You’re going to spend $XXXX on what???
21. You plan family vacations around hamfest dates.
22. When you see a house with a metal roof, and your only thought is what a great ground plane that would be.
23. You have pictures of your radio equipment as wallpaper on your computer’s desktop.
24. Every family vacation includes a stop at a Ham radio store.
25. The first question you ask the new car dealer is: “What is the alternator’s current output”?
26. You buy a brand new car based on the radio mounting locations and antenna mounting possibilities.
27. You have tapped out Morse code on your car’s horn. (I may try this if I ever mount a horn on the bike)
28. A lightning storm takes out a new Laptop, Plasma TV, and DVD Recorder, but all you care about is if your radios are okay. (Good riddance to the Plasma… they should be banned… I too have more concern for my radios…)
29. Your wife has had to ride in the back seat because you had radio equipment in the front seat.
30. Your wife threatens you with divorce when you tell her that you are going on a “fox” hunt.
31. Your wife says ‘the kids need to be fed’ and you first wonder what their impedances are.
32. When house hunting, you look for the best room for a radio shack and scan the property for possible tower placement.
33. When house hunting, you give your realtor topographical maps showing local elevations.
34. The real estate agent scratches his head when you ask if the soil conductivity is high, medium, or low.
35. You have Ham radio magazines in the bathroom.
36. When your doorbell rings, you immediately shut down the amplifier.
37. Fermentation never enters your mind when “home-brew” is mentioned.
38. Instead of just saying no, you have said “negative”.
39. You have used a person’s name to indicate acknowledgement.
40. You become impatient waiting for the latest AES catalog to arrive.
41. You have found yourself whistling “CQ” using Morse code.
42. You always schedule the last full weekend in June for vacation.
43. You walk carefully in your back yard to avoid being close-lined. (Make that step carefully around back deck to avoid tripping over feedlines)
44. You have deep anxiety or panic attacks during high winds or heavy ice.
45. You and the FedEx/UPS men are on a first name basis.
46. You really start to miss people that you’ve never seen.
47. Your exercise machine is a Morse code keyer.
48. You walk through the plumbing section at the hardware store and see antenna parts.
49. Your neighbours thought you were nuts when you ripped up your lawn to bury chicken wire.
50. Your next door neighbour thinks that your wife is a widow.
51. Your wife has delivered meals to your Ham shack.
52. If you sold all your Ham radio equipment, you could pay off your mortgage.
53. Removing snow from the roof of your car requires working around the antenna and wires.
54. You have never seen a Meteor Shower because you are inside on 6 meters when they occur.
55. If your radio equipment has a more advanced processor than your PC.
56. You hear about a pileup on the local news and you run to your radio equipment and start calling CQ.
57. If you install ferrite beads and place shrink tubing on your toaster appliance cords.
58. If your wife puts something on and asks “Does this make me look too fat?” and you reply with: “Honey you have an excellent front to back ratio with appreciable forward gain on the front lobes.”
59. If you think the half human / half machine individuals on a Borg Cube are really just a friendly group of electronic experimenters with similar interests.
60. You have no idea as to the weather forecast for tomorrow, but know the solar forecast for the next month.
61. If your blood type is RF positive.
62. You sell your dog to buy an amplifier.
63. Your XYL says communication is important in a marriage…so you buy another radio for the shack.
64. You doodle Hartley and Colpitts oscillators during boring meetings.
65. ..your boss asks if you understand? And you reply “QSL” !!!
66. You have been going to the library since you were three and the only shelf you ever go to has Dewey Decimal number 621.
67. You have invested more on your radio equipment than on your kids education.
68. You hire a babysitter to come over, and then you never leave the house-you just go to the shack so you can contest undisturbed.
69. You occasionally buy a Playboy magazine and let your Mum find it , just so she can think that you are ‘normal’.
70. You’ll spend hundreds of dollars on a new rig, and then wander the hamfest pausing each time you pass the booth selling those $7 embroidered call-sign hats thinking “I wonder if they’ll take $6?”
71. When shopping for a new vehicle the first think you look for is space to mount the radios – you end up sitting in the front seat staring blankly at the dashboard area, feeling underneath seats, and poking around the back seat for ways to route the coax. If caught looking under the hood for holes in the firewall for your power cables, you tell your wife, “Nothing honey, just checking things under here.”
72. Your family has a special annual garage sale just to get rid of the boxes of wire, coax, and power adapters-but you pay your friends to “buy” the stuff and get them to quietly return it to you the following weekend.
73. The $10 bargain you got at the flea market that smoked up the whole house when you turned it on is one of your prized possessions.
74. Your wife has called you three times for dinner – then she calls you on the repeater.
75. When going on vacation, the first thing you think about packing is your hand-helds, chargers, scanner and frequency book.
76. The total number of radio related books in your home are five times the total number of all other books and magazines.
77. You visually check your outdoor antennas and coax once a week, regardless of the weather.
78. You have more certificates and licenses on the wall than your local veterinarian or dentist.
79. All the local cops know your vehicle on sight – “it’s the blue Ford with six antennas”. (“It’s that bike with the 6′ whip”)
80. You think an upside to gaining weight is more belt space for radios.
81. You immediately think of `tower’ when someone says the word – `erection’.
Some additions I’d add to the above list
82. When naming kids, you immediately think: Charlie, Juliet, Mike, Oscar, Romeo and Victor.
83. You prefer the grandkids call you Papa.
84. You plan your week around regular nets. (“C’mon, they’ll be expecting me on 3.590MHz in 15 minutes”)
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