Timeline 2568 พฤศจิกายน 14
MaeowMaeow Wisan, whose nickname I will abbreviate as MM had a hospitalization this weekend. It started with them checking their Blood pressure. The new app attached to the cuff via Bluetooth® to their phone read, “irregular heartbeat”. Consequently they retook it several times. The blood pressure readings were all over them map, one low, one high, and it felt like the other times she went to the hospital for BP. This time however, they were feeling just fine. The next morning they got two more readings. Unsure what to do they went to the minor “Doc in a Box” where they have gotten good service medical advice before. The doc hooked them up to an ECG and the doc said, “You won’t like this, but you should go to the ER”. They told them that they did like it. They had come for advice on what to do. They thanked them and got a ride.

On the better machine, the more wires it has the better, it became clear that the problem was Afib. 

MaeowMaeow has been admitted twice before for having their blood pressure all over the place and feeling bad. They also have been to the ER once more and had a doctors visit once. Each of these times, the vastly differing readings on the BP cuff should have alerted the MDs that the problem could be Afib. Each time they missed this. They assumed hypochondriac. 

The previous times MM was getting BP readings on her cuff that were really high and really low. The readings were inaccurate because of the Afib. Those readings were typical of what you would have if you have Afib. But MM said their blood pressure was going up and down. While not true literally, the message contained the truth. Instead of being considered it was written off. 

MM and I are disgusted by this. There is an arrogance in the belief that the non-expert has nothing to say, that their observations are of no value, that if they use the wrong language what they say has no substance.This arrogance is, in our experience epidemic in the medical field. MM should have been given a monitor years ago. If asked she could have said that she has had this feeling many times without going to the hospital or doctor.  

We have read and been told that by itself A.fib is not really dangerous, but its side effects are. It increases the chance of stroke between 1 and 10 times and can also eventually lead to heart failure. It is also progressive. A.fib episodes tend to bring about more episodes although it sounds like the progression is slow. 

MM’s parents ( the Rents )had the same disease as the MDs. But rather than having low respect for the utterances of patients, the parents had low respect for the utterances of their children. Further both the Rents and the MDs often believe that something is not realy until it is proven. They believe this is true, but only about things told to them by their children and patients respectively (maybe that should be “disrespectfully”) .

MM recently had the experience of having a doctor quote a medical journal article to them. When MM mentioned another part of the same article they rolled their eyes.  

Doctors that listen well and respect what they hear are worth their weight in gold, or at least silver, and parents that do the same make the world a better place. 

~+7 LE
At our house we played games. Some were simple card games like Crazy 8’s , Gin, etc. There were some oddball games from Hoyles Book of Rules, like Russian Bank. We also played board games, Candyland, Park and Shop which was my first introduction to “hard problems”, Stratego, and others. Oddly we did not play Backgammon. Checkers and Chess might require another entry on the timeline.
We also played Monopoly. In our house playing Monopoly cheating was fair. But you could lose a turn if you got caught before the next turn. This could include underpayment, stealing from the bank, and moving to the wrong space. Like when stealing my nothings, my brothers would gang up on me. Somehow they could roll the dice and know exactly where they had to move their token to without counting. I was not a great student at this point and had not learned to add well although I was passing. At some point I started to do my addition on the Monopoly board.
The board is broken into four sides. Each has the originating corner, space 0 and the final corner, space ten. The spaces at 5 on each of the sides are the railroads.
So, lets say you are on space 8 and roll a 10. That would put you on the next space 8. Lets say you roll a 5. The first two gets you too the corner and three remains leaving you on a the 3 space. Or lets say you roll a 9. That almost puts you on the next 8 space, but one before.  I see this happen in my head. There are no words, A seven fills the space between 8 and 15. In my head addition is often visualized.
This year is +69 LE and I still sometimes add this way even though I have the table memorized.
The winter break before I married Gail I went to her house during Christmas. Her family plays games on Christmas day and they brought out the Monopoly set. I needed to know the rules. There are factional differences in how the rules are interpreted and I straightened these out. Then I asked, “Is cheating fair?” The silence is still reverberationg and the astonished stares are etched deep in memory. “Ok, I just wanted to make sure I understand the rules.”

1960-62 
My conceptual art carrier began with the setup of my factory to produce nothings. Nothings come in generally three flavors, chocolate, strawberry and vanilla. Of these many more chocolate nothings were produced than the other flavors.  
Setting up the nothing factory required me to upturn my tricycle in the driveway. Making them required me to turn the wheel. If you turned it too fast it did not work. There are only so many nothings that can be produced in a day on a tricycle. Given its operation in a system of capitalism this stabilizes the price. 
My brothers, both older used to gang up on me. It was not all negative. If you want to read about that see “Timline Monopoly”. But they would gang up on me and steel my nothings. Normally I would not have noticed, but they would say, “I stole your nothings”. This would set me crying. They were mean.  It did not prevent me from making more. 
Recently I did something special for my son Ben. I said, “you owe me”. He promptly settled his debt to me by placing 5 nothings in my hand. I did not know where he got them from. He said he got them from his fiance’. 

In the evening on December 25 just after my children got in from a very rare snowfall in South Texas a Tsunami struck South East Asia killing a quarter of million people in 14 countries. It was devastating for countless communities and families. I remember the little video coverage I could bring myself to watch. I wondered if the couple we met at their beach house at Hat Takua Paa (Lead (Pb) Forest Beach) survived. I am nearly certain that the house did not. The beaches we visited on Phuket were certainly inundated. There is a little more about this below. The amount of fun we had that day from a very unusual snowfall was in such start contrast to the calamity that I had a profound, yet irrational sense of guilt that I was unable to exorcise for weeks.

About a week after the disaster we went south for something. It could have been an exhibition, or a La Leche League conference or perhaps just to visit the Brownsville Zoo. I am not sure. However while we were down there I was scanning around on the mobile ham radio that I have in the car. I picked up retransmission of relief efforts for the tsunami and listened to a ham on a military aircraft surveying and reporting on what he saw near Phuket. This radio transmission went to a land based Thai station and was sent via the internet using a ham radio chat program to the person in charge of what really can be thought of as one world-wide partly line or conference call who was located at an Emergency Operations Center in Alaska.

These hams were not the only ones operating. Fortunately, if anything about this tragedy can be called fortunate, the Indian Government had decided to allow a DX (ham radio jargon for long distance contact) Expedition to go and operate in Port Blair on the Andaman Islands. Hams collect records of contacts and Islands without permanent radio operators have operators visit every so often so that other hams can collect contacts with the Islands. The person who contacts the most places wins a piece of paper. When the tremor that caused the tsunami hit VU2RBI Mrs Bharathi Prasad was already set up and operating. She was able to yell “tremors” into the microphone before her power went out. Her station became the only contact with that Island operating with her hotels emergency generator.

VU2MYH S. Ram Mohan set up a station on Car Nicobar Island. He was also running a DX Expedition and had to resort to morse code for much of his communication. Morse code requires much less power, really the same thing as saying it is louder for the same strength signal or that it is much easier to pull out of noise conditions then voice. As an example my 0.43 watt morse code radio, a kit I built has been heard as far as Michigan, 1700 km. Radio is amazing.

“When all else fails there is still ham radio.” After the 9/11 attaacks in New York City some of the earliest communications out of the city were via ham radio. During Hurricane Katrina a ham provided reports of the conditions while the storm was happening. What ham radio can be during an emergency is a huge network of equipment and trained operators distributed across the world, in most countries and certainly all across the US. I am not particularly trained or equipped but I can be set up with a new antenna, and long distance radio gear powered by a car battery in less than an hour. My local communications gear is quicker. Red Cross and governmental emergency services makes frequent use of ham radio.

I am not particularly well trained, and not involved as I should be, but while I am typing I keep thinking about a “net” tomorrow morning. A net is an on- air meeting. It is, at its most basic level, a practice session for emergency communications via radio. You cannot all talk at once on one frequency and then be able to understand anyone. There needs to be a procedure and nets are where we practice. The person in charge is the Net Operator or Net Control. They ask for emergency traffic. Emergency traffic involving life always has priority on ham radio as it should. After that they ask for checkins. People check in, hopefully one at a time. The Net Control reads back the list of checkins and then asks if there are anymore. Then Net Control goes down the list and checks in with each checkin. They exchange information, but everyone gets to listen.

So, after the tsunami I thought that I should figure out how to talk with Thai Hams through a computer program that links radios up worldwide via the internet called Echolink. It is how the audio from the military aircraft got to Alaska. At my end I was talking through a computer and in Thailand my audio was coming out via ham radio repeaters across the country. The first time I got on I was nervous, my Thai language was shaky, but the Thai hams were gracious and thoughtful, and very happy to be able to talk with an American ham. There were hundreds of people that wanted to talk with me at first, and I always needed someone in Thailand to manage it. First, they know the customs on the air, and I still cannot always tell what a radio operator wants me to do, and second there is often a one second lag between here and there, sometimes longer and if people don’t allow for it communication could be quite difficult. This audio latency in Echolink has gotten better as “The Web” has gotten faster.

That initial checkin started about a ten year period of almost daily checking into a Thai Radio net called a “Check-Net” in Thai. This net just calls for checkins and then people exchange signal reports ( reports of how good your signal is). A report of 5 is excellent. A report of 3 means fair, two is poor. 1 is terrible. You would think that the function of a net like this is so that you can daily check your radio. I will not say that this is not true, but it is in my view more important in that it trains people to understand how to operate in a net. It also brings people together for a common activity. As mundane as a check net is, it creates a sense of community. You think that all you are communicating is a call sign and a signal report but there are more important and also more subtle things.

Signal reports are generally given on ham radio as 3 numbers in the format RST where R is the readability on a 1-5 scale , S is strength (1-9) and T is the quality of a morse code tone (1-9) . In the US there is a little signal inflation, reports come back better then they really are. Sometimes it is just easier to say 5 or 59 or 599 depending on the mode of reporting then to say 588 or some other report. Sometimes it seems as a put down. In Thailand, which only uses the R part on UHF voice radios, a signal has to be pretty bad with most operators before it will get a 4 report. This would seem to remove half the value of the net, But most communication is in the subtext, and all of the other operators hear you helping a weak signal ham feel good. Many of these hams are operating 30 year old radios, have cobbled together power supplies and are mostly limited to 10 watts. Its not much power.

This Check-Net is run almost every day of the year. Net control operators seem to last a few years and then get tired of it. They either change daily or sometimes weekly. I was net control once at the HS8AD Club station for the HAM CU SIAM checknet. I saw it as a big honor. It was difficult as it was all in Thai and there are records to be kept. I did OK.

For a long time there was a woman ham running the NET a few times a week. Judging by her vocabulary she was well educated, very polite, fun to talk with. She has a very sexy voice. The first few times she was on I thought, and I think it is accurate, that some hams were a bit embarrassed or shy to talk with her. It seemed that I could hear it in their voices . This improved over time people became more comfortable. It was fun to listen to. In Thai there are different words for “you” depending on how old you are, sometimes your profession, and relative to the age of the person speaking. As a foreigner if you speak Thai they will forgive almost any mistake in this. The fact that you speak Thai is enough to cover almost any language error so long as someone does not think you intend disrespect.

Khun is you. As a foreigner this is safe way to address people in most circumstances. Thaan might go as “sir” but it usually should not be used for someone younger than you. There might be exceptions. I am not sure. These days with my white hair I get call “uncle” a lot. But when at a school I am almost always addressed as “professor”. On the radio things are split but, the Thais show their concern for my feelings by not forgetting to call me professor, not that I care, but I do hear the concern. I let them, even though I prefer Louis. They feel obligated, I don’t want them to be uncomfortable. It is not my culture to try and reform.

If you are a craftsman, a woodworker, potter, a metal worker, I am not sure of the limits of this term, then you are called craftsperson or “chang”. So if I was not a professor I might be called Chang Louie. .A friend or relative that is older is refered to as P. My elder brother is P Ralph. Since I am younger he calls me nong (younger) Louis. My name is said with a rising tone like a question in Thai. Professor Louie? Your friends mother might be called “mom” mae ( Mæ̀) . Don’t get the idea you are learning to pronounce these words OK? I will try and put something together about Thai language and learning. We brought two Thai potters to the US for a conference in Tempe Arizona. One was Chang Jork which translates as Craftsman Drinking glass, and Uncle Shot Glass. They deserve a whole ‘nother essay.

Anyhow, listening to the nets, and talking informally I learn where people live, what they do, what kind of radio they have, when they spend time with family and about their family. I learn how they treat others, I try to make sense of their jokes. Very little that is serious gets talked about on radio. While it is OK to talk about politics and religion between hams in the US, these topics are not allowed between US hams and hams from other countries. The world wide ham radio laws are written to encourage countries to allow radios and to foster friendships and technical skill as well as emergency communication. I do not know if these topics are illegal on ham radio in Thailand but I don’t hear them often.

The year after the tsunami hit I was spending three hours a night talking and listening. At the end of the year I could call myself fluent in idle chit chat. My vocabulary has increased to where I can pass vocabulary tests if the apparatus, the organizing questions are asked in English. I do OK on a list of 3rd grade vocabulary. But much of this is because I am a good test taker. I cannot even come close to reading a newspaper and a third grade schoolbook is way beyond me. But I am still improving.

In 2009 I wrote a piece about a Silent Key. This is ham radio speak for a deceased ham, in this case HS4CTT. The piece, the letter. is about subtext. His call sign comes to my thoughts whenever I talk about Thai nets, and I still hear his rich voice.

HS4CTT SK

Walking to work today connected through Echolink® via my handheld and simplex node, I found out that good friend, and a fine ham HS4CTT
became a silent key. I would never have predicted it but found myself with tears streaming down my face unable to speak with HS8PID who gave me the sad news.

I have been talking with Thai Hams daily since about one month after the tsunami struck South and Southeast Asia on December 26, 2004. I use Echolink® and try to check in at least once a day.

HS4CTT was good friend. It is surprising how little I seem to know about him. I do know the important things. He was a good friend, had
a warm gracious heart,  and could be counted on. The mundane details are few and relatively unimportant. He sold radio equipment I think,
liked ballroom dancing and fishing, and seemed to like travel. When his health was good he was on the radio everyday with welcoming
conversation. I don’t even know his name, although I sent condolences to his wife.

All we ever talked about was, “How you doing”, weather, signals, what time it is. We just did it every day for years. Each greeting is connection even if small. They add up.

I speak Thai. My wife and I taught ourselves Thai from Foreign Service Institute Tapes before a research trip there in 1988-89. My Thai was sketchy in early 2005 when I started my daily chats with Thai hams. It was sufficient for long conversations about where I
lived, what grows here, the weather, and normal “idle chit-chat”. It was not sufficient to follow most communications between the Thais
themselves.

Early on I was asked to check in to the ‘Checknet’ net on the Thailand conference. The Thai checknet is a daily check-in and signal report net held in Thai Language on the Thai conference servers. It is an hour long, and handles about 60 check-ins. People check-in,
greet and thank the net control operator, give a signal report,  and ask for a signal report. Then net control returns with the same
information.

I listen to this net daily and it would seem boring, but it is not. Actors speak about ‘subtext’; the information carried in the tone
used, and in the speed and inflection. In a theatre this ‘subtext’ is more important than the script. It is the heart and soul the true
interpersonal dialogue. In real life this is true as well. It is no less true during the Checknet than other conversations. During the
Checknet I learn all sorts of things about people. I learn whether or not they are shy with women (the Checknet control operators tend to be women)
how they react to stress from difficult signals, whether or not they like a good joke, and a myriad of things too subtle for me to
verbalize. You learn their balance between politeness and functionality.

In 2007 I went to a conference on development in Siem Riap, Cambodia and on the way back to the US stopped in Thailand. The Thai hams were
very gracious. The word most similar to gracious in Thai is Nam Jai or literally water from the heart. In Thai it seems to be an open welcoming with arms wide and a smile, although do not expect hugs. The visitor is made special. It is Nam Jai, among other things, that makes Thailand a delightful tourist destination.

In Phuket I was lent a handheld [ radio] to use. Within 10 minutes of using it there was someone at the hotel where I was staying wanting to take me to breakfast. At breakfast there were 5 hams who had come together to meet me. That afternoon I had coffee and snacks at a beachside
restaurant with another group of hams. At this location, all the hams had handhelds, all the radios were on. One [thing] I found annoying as the
squelch was too low and static was breaking the squelch frequently. I think someone read my face. Rather than explaining why the radio was
on he showed me the high water mark from the tsunami. If I had a radio, I might have had my squelch low too. [They were being careful and listening for evacuation signals.]

However delightful being in Thailand as a tourist has nothing on  the joy of being a Thai-speaking ham from the US. It was hard to sleep as
people wanted to do so much with me. HS9BA drove me from Chumphon to Phuket to keep me from needing to take a bus. HS9DEK came up from the
south to Bangkok ( a full day’s drive)  to meet me. HS0NRL drove me around Bangkok. HS4CTT drove a full day for an eyeball with me. I
will miss the delight he expressed when speaking with others and his infectious graciousness. I will always remember our friendship
through radio.

Louis Katz
W0IT / HS0ZGJ (expired Thai callsign is HS0ZGJ)