A Jammer satire by Hansl Hohlleiter
There are radio amateurs who do something. There are those who organise something. And there is Adi Amtskette, OE0AMT, who is something.
What exactly he is stands underneath every one of his e-mails. Four lines. You scroll.
The topic
Adi is a radio manager. That is what it says, in English, in an Austrian radio club with 34 members.
Radio manager of what is a surprisingly difficult question, because the wording has changed several times over the years, always in the same direction: longer. It began with „in charge of portable operation". Then came „desk officer, outdoor radio". At present the signature reads „Radio Manager Outdoor & Portable Operations, Coordinator Activities Domain".
What the domain actually does, nobody can say. There was once a calendar of joint mountain tours. The last entry in it is two and a half years old and refers to a date that was cancelled because of rain.
But that is not the point. The point is that the domain exists, and that it belongs to Adi. Nothing about it is actually managed. The title does not describe an activity, it describes a holding.
And yes, the obvious question. Adi was last on a summit six years ago. He says he does not get round to it at the moment, because the coordination takes up so much time. What gets coordinated is nothing that would not happen without him: the people who actually walk up there have been arranging things for years in a chat group in which Adi is indeed a member, but only writes when somebody has failed to mention him.
The title comes along
It gets interesting where amateur radio stops.
Adi carries his domain not only into the club, but out of it. On his business card it sits below his profession. At the parents' evening he introduced himself with it. He once mentioned to the woman at the bakery that things were rather hectic „in the domain" just now, whereupon she nodded politely and went on stacking bread rolls.
At the municipal office, so it is reported, he mentioned his function during an enquiry about an antenna permit. Twice. The clerk, who is not a radio amateur, made a note of it, because he thought it was an authority.
That is the heart of the matter. For Adi the domain is not a service to a community but a proof. He holds something, therefore he is somebody. Without the domain he would be one radio amateur among 34 others in the club; with it he is the only one who stands for something. That this something would not be missed by anyone changes nothing about that, on the contrary: the less the topic means on its own, the more meaning he has to put into it himself.
The back-patting economy
Once a year Adi writes the report of his domain. It is four pages long. I have read it, that is part of my job.
In those four pages the word „I" appears 31 times. The phrase „I was able to achieve" six times. „Not least through my own doing" twice, which is remarkable if only because it describes the same matter on both occasions.
What actually happened that year: one hike, organised by two members, announced by Adi. One bulk order of portable masts, handled by the treasurer, listed in the report as a „procurement initiative of the domain". And one Excel sheet of summits in the area, which somebody else created four years ago and which Adi has updated once.
Adi does not lie. He was part of all of it. He simply has a very particular idea of where taking part stops and merit begins.
It was clearest at the activity day in September. A fine day, 26 people on the mountain, eight of them had never operated portable before. Two members were up there at six in the morning putting up the masts. One woman made coffee all day long and explained logging to three newcomers on the side. Somebody brought his transceiver and handed it over, which is more trust than most people can manage. One father dragged his two children along and stayed anyway.
The report about it is a page and a half long and names three people. The mayor, who sent a message of greeting. The chairman, in a subordinate clause. And Adi.
Adi twice.
The others appear as „numerous helpers", which is formally correct and an impertinence all the same. Anyone who walks up a forestry track at six in the morning with a fibreglass mast on his back is not a number. He is Josef, and he would have deserved to have his name in the report that only twelve people read anyway.
What he is missing is the applause. So he organises it himself: he submits nominations for honours for people who he knows will afterwards submit nominations for honours for him. In the local branch they now call it the rotating award.
And then came an objection
At the annual general meeting in March something unusual happened. A new member, young, freshly licensed, friendly, asked during the discussion what the domain actually does. Not snidely. He wanted to help out.
Adi answered for twenty-two minutes. There was no answer in it.
When the chairman finally asked him to move on to the next item, the thing happened that I actually want to describe here, and that separates the radio manager from the mere self-important man.
Adi did not raise his voice. Adi did not get factual. Adi called for somebody who is responsible.
Within ten days there was: one e-mail to a body he assumed was responsible for „the tone in local clubs". A second e-mail to a body he assumed stood above the first, because the first had not replied within 48 hours. An enquiry to a lawyer friend as to whether a contribution in a club meeting could be „defamatory". And a phone call to the chairman, in which the sentence fell: „I am having this looked into."
What exactly was to be looked into by whom remained open. The verb was the important part.
Anyone who has known Adi for a while has seen this many times. During the repeater row three years ago, when he insisted that „somebody has to clarify that officially". During the discussion about the club evening, when he announced that he would „make enquiries at a higher level". During the argument about an invoice, when he demanded somebody „who will take a proper look at this for once". He never says who these people are supposed to be. It is enough that they might exist.
The pattern behind it
I have thought about this for longer than the occasion deserves, and I believe it is this.
Whoever understands a topic as a task can hear criticism of it. It concerns the matter. You can agree, disagree, change something, carry on.
Whoever wears a topic as an identity cannot. If he is somebody because the domain belongs to him, then the question „what is this thing even for" is no longer a question about the matter, but the question „what are you even for". And because that feels existential, he reaches for the strongest tool he knows.
Children in that situation call for their mother. Grown men with a domain call for somebody who is responsible. The mechanism is the same: it is not the matter that is to be settled, but somebody further up who is to confirm that one is in the right and that the other has behaved badly.
The sad part is that it works. Nobody in the club fancies having e-mails land somewhere because of one contribution to a discussion. So they let Adi be. He has learned that and applies it, for eight years now, successfully.
What it costs
The new member has not come back. Not because of Adi alone, but because after the meeting he rang two people and asked whether that was normal. Both said: „Yes, that is just Adi." That answered the question, but differently from how it was meant.
That is the real bill. Not the ridiculous domain, not the annual report, not even the e-mails to whoever it was. But the fact that in every local branch there are a few people who ask exactly once whether they can help out here, and who draw their conclusions from the answer.
Adi, by the way, received a certificate of honour in June. For long-standing services to outdoor radio. The nomination came from a colleague in a neighbouring branch, for whom Adi had submitted a nomination the year before.
Hansl's verdict
Hansl's verdict: Volunteer roles are the backbone of this hobby. Without the people who look after repeaters, organise exams, run courses and do the paperwork, there would be no amateur radio, only a few individuals with antennas. These people deserve every recognition, and they usually get too little of it.
The difference to Adi is easy to spot, and at exactly one place: what happens when somebody objects? Whoever works for the matter discusses. Whoever works for himself looks for an authority.
Taking on a topic in a radio club is not a promotion. It is permission to do more work than the others, and the thanks for it come rarely and quietly. Whoever draws his worth from that has chosen the wrong hobby: in amateur radio you do not become somebody because you hold something, but because you press the key. And for that nobody needs a title in the signature.
And to anyone now wondering whether he is the one being meant: you are not. The ones who are meant do not ask. They are already looking up the right address for the complaint.
All persons and callsigns in this article are entirely fictitious. Similarities to living radio amateurs are intentional but not legally actionable. The author accepts no liability for spontaneous self-recognition and is expressly not available to the authorities for enquiries.
Transparency Notice
This article was researched and written with the support of AI (Claude, Anthropic). Illustrations used were created with AI unless marked otherwise. Editorial responsibility and content review rest with the oeradio.at editorial team. Suggestions and complaints, including from Adi, are welcome at [email protected].
