This is a modified , enriched version of my initial post here on steemit, published more than two years ago. How many of those, who have seen this before, are yet active here on steemit? A dozen ? Or five? Or 1-2 ?
Today I read a bunch of replying posts (@laputis, @drugelis, @organduo) to recent challenge #myusername of @contrabourdon [ here is that post ], and decided that maybe I should go for this, and post an updated version of my rather old post.
Why I named myself ONEALFA ?
The nickname @onealfa maybe meaningless for most people. While some may think, that this is something ambitious, related to 1A... like listed first… or premium… or first class…. or god knows what else, just written with a small error, where “alfa” shall be “alpha”. Reality is different, much different, and is extremely simple.
I have a hobby, called “amateur radio” ( or often called HAM radio), and in that game a precise, unique call signs must be used. Which are defining, what country you are located, (in some cases – even in which region of that country), and are the only such in THE whole world. Because this hobby is global, and truly border-less. ( just like crypto's) Those callsigns are permanent, licensed to a particular person. And can not ever be used by other person ( at least in a significantly long time frame, usually 50-100 years)
So, my personal Ham radio callsign is
LY1A
While broadcasting, transmitting ham radio callsign to other hobbyist by a radio waves, and by voice, usually the easy recognizable audio spelling is used. And my call LY1A is usually spelled as
“Lima—Yankee—One—Alpha”
I just took the second half, and used it as my nick name. To simplify things, and look and sound more natural in my own language, and changed Alpha to Alfa.
LY is the prefix of the call, and it is indicating my country, Lithuania
So, this is a full disclosure of my nickname secret. It is simple, short, unique, ease recognizable, reliable, permanent. I use it almost in every other place while online, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, Slack, YouTube, Google+, Vimeo, KeyBase, Producthunt, Flickr, Foursquare, Disqus, Medium , Etsy, Myspace, Photobucket, Imgur, Flipboard, KiK, Telegram, Discord, etc etc
Ask Google, they will prove :)
As all my colleagues "hams" share the same prefix "LY", we often call each other (in the real life) by the second part of the call. Some of my old time friends, and well known persons in HAM world are FIVE-Alfa (LY5A), Seven-Zebra (LY7Z), Nine-Yankey (LY9Y), Two-Wiskey (LY2W).
Just enter their call in the google, set for "pictures" , and you can easily find each of them, with photos of the man and his radios, and of course - their ANTENNAS
Because the radio communications can be ONLY AS GOOD AS GOOD ARE YOUR ANTENNAS.
Nothing is more important than antennas in this great hobby.
The interesting thing is - that this is kind of social network, which existed LONG before Facebook, before Twitter, Before Instagram or YouTube, and yes, sure - before STEEMIT.
Long before the INTERNET itself.
I am pretty sure that I'm the longest (or at least one of the longest) participants of social networking here on Steemit.
I'm in live (!) social networking since 1971, and for good period, maybe 25+ years been doing it like crazy, day after day, non-stop, 360+ days in a year. For 25 years !
Have established a personal two-way radio contacts with EVERY SINGLE country in the world, on all continents including Antarctica, and many many small and tiny, uninhabited islands in all five oceans of this planet. Have made contacts with astronauts in Earth-orbit, contacts with both Americas, Africa and Japan by bouncing signals back from the Moon, having this Earth satellite act as a passive signal reflector
(BITCOIN to the MOON ?!)
I know the taste of winning #1 place in the whole world, in contests, and a taste of holding world records.
Well.. but this was quite some time ago. When I was young and more crazy than I am know. :)
And here are a few of my QSL’s:
What is a QSL? That is like a paper document, confirming an established two-way radio contact
But this subj is a long talk, long enough for another post. Maybe one day. Stay tuned... :)
Or ask google - it will show more QSL related to me
@onealfa
LY1A (also USA extra class licence holder as AB4UW)
P.S.
If somebody wants to learn more about HAMS, a good source to start is here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio