[amsat-bb] Who Let THIS Info Out?

[Joseph Armbruster]

Bruce,

I'll be Frank with you (no pun intended...).  But, I really had to take a
deep breath just now and release it slowly a few times, and re-read this
email, completely, before sending it... I witnessed my dad being shot in an
armed robbery down in liberty city (south FL) when I was 9 years old.  It
happened at my grandmas house on the car port, right across miami dade
community college, south campus.  My dad took a point blank bullet to the
head after we got home from picking up groceries.  So, no... a police
officer never kneeled on MY neck but I have seen the absolute worst that
humanity has to offer.  And I treat every single human, with the same
suspicion that those guys instilled in me on that day while approaching my
family up the driveway.  He was shot for $0.75c out of my moms purse.  Oh!
And, the officers falsely accused my parents of a drug-deal gone bad...
which was a false accusation.... But, this didn't make me hate every gun
owner, nor police officer on Earth.

That being said, I really had no opportunities of doing any amateur radio
stuff as a kid or through college mostly due to life circumstances /
finance.  I graduated from high school in 1999, graduated from UCF in
2004.  At UCF I hung out with many of the HAMs there, hung out in the
physics lab, hacked at code/hardware with many... This is back when the
amateur radio group was on the top floor of the math and physics building
at UCF and when the campus administration allowed antennas on top of the
building and allowed the club to maintain them.  I remember going to the
top of the building and looking down, it was cool!  I remember at some
point, the administration people told the club they had to take their
antennas down because they "didn't like the view" from the admin building
(which was within their view across the reflection pond in front of the
library).  I wasn't very involved with radio much back then, but I remember
hearing my friends complain and thinking to myself "these admin people are
really angry about people wanting to mess with radio at a college
campus??!? Don't they have better things to worry about?!?!?"  It was
wrong, but I didn't know any better at the time and didn't bother trying to
do anything about it.  I was busy just trying to pass my classes... In the
end, the antennas had to be moved.  Looking back at this now, I feel this
was a failure of UCF Administration.  UCF gets a lot of attention today and
they are my school, but they really screwed the amateur radio club there
when I was present and i'll never forget that.  The location of the ham
club was perfect and so was the location of the antennas, admin really
destroyed a perfectly good thing, in the name of "looking nice".  At that
time in college, I was never really motivated to get a license for any
reason (it cost $).  I worked the entire time throughout college, various
jobs, from LA Fittness, Barnes and Noble, the math lab at UCF, the computer
labs on campus, as a teaching assistant and a programmer at the Institute
for Simulation and Training here in Orlando.  After I graduated college, I
started working, got married and started a family around 2007.  We took a
vacation and my uncle was showing me his ham HF equipment (this was in a
different country in south america) while I was on vacation, which really
got me interested in it.  After that exposure, I decided to get my license
when I returned and I got serious about it.  After contacting a local
amateur radio club about getting a license, there were some AMSAT guys
there and they took me under their wing... without any reservation.  And
let me be clear, Several AMSAT Volunteers (and club members) took me under
their wing and taught me almost everything I know about radio)..  These
"OLD" volunteers taught me machining, tons of interesting electronics/fab
tricks, propagation, network analyzer intricacies, cable creation.  These
people asked for nothing in return, Nothing!!  These are really amazing,
giving, people.  I even went to a teach-in with a few people at a school
here in Orlando with the local school.  This group of people exposed me to
a world of knowledge that I did not receive as a kid in high school or even
in college.  I went through an entire computer science program, with all
the math / physics (more graduate level than most), and never was exposed
to RF.... Really... AMSAT (and the local amateur radio groups) are really
the root-cause of my advancement.  And, AMSAT was the primer.

On a side-note, they also exposed me to what it means to volunteer for
something.  What it actually means to volunteer.  I had never seen people
'donate time' or 'donate effort' ever in my youth, because that concept
didn't exist... I don't know if many on the -b actually get this or not,
but everyone I observed in my youth was always just working and focused on
surviving financially.  The volunteers at AMSAT, were just giving awaytheir
time, for the love of the game.... to a bunch of people they didn't
know!!!!  Umm... that's an incredible concept.  Time is the most valuable
commodity in life, hence, why I feel the way I do.  I've seen nothing but
positive, constructive, helpful representation from AMSAT.  And, I am
indebted to the individuals and organization for this and I will be for the
rest of my life.  If I didn't feel this way, I wouldn't spend my time
writing this (and i'm a fast typer, average 110wpm on my daily keyboard, 80
maybe on someone else' without practice).

So, fast-foward to 2014 and right now.  I'm not a hundred-thousandaire or
millionaire, but I run my own small business, have employees and I am
focused on software + hardware + machining.  Some of the skills that I
utilize now, I picked up as a result of these "old guys" who volunteered
their time to teach me.  So many people at AMSAT donated their time,
to unknowingly Educate me, in one way or another.  AMSAT has an absolutely
amazing conglomeration of personalities, engineering experiences, political
beliefs, technical and non-technical experiences.  None of these should be
overshadowed.  Many people in AMSAT have really changed my life and I know
that I am not the only one that feels this way.  As a result, I take all of
this very personally.  Maybe this is just my own experience and maybe i'm
the only one... but.. None of these people hired lawyers against me, ever.

Like anything else in life, all that really matters is the people.  I hope
the people that prevail in this election are able to propagate the same
characteristics and values that the people of AMSAT have shown me in the
past.

Joseph Armbruster
KJ4JIO

On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 5:42 PM Bruce Perens <bruce at perens.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, Aug 7, 2020, 2:11 PM Joseph Armbruster via AMSAT-BB <
> amsat-bb at amsat.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> This sure makes me wonder, why didn't AMSAT ever do this against me or the
>> tons of volunteers and engineers before me?  You can't tell me this is the
>> first case of some problem...
>>
>
> Joseph,
>
> And no police officer ever kneeled on _your_ neck, or your friends, so it
> must be the Black person's problem, right?
>
> It's the exact same argument.
>
> There has been no shortage of conflict between AMSAT management and
> volunteers. I have a long list of people whom I know were the major
> developers of previous AMSAT missions, who we don't see here any longer.
>
> As I said previously, no one hired lawyers against you because you did not
> act as opposition to the incumbent board.
>
>>