{"id":286,"date":"2026-08-13T22:55:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T22:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/?page_id=286"},"modified":"2026-08-14T13:14:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:14:23","slug":"oral-history-ann-shores-k6sho","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/home\/oral-histories\/oral-history-ann-shores-k6sho\/","title":{"rendered":"Oral History: Ann Shores, K6SHO"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-cover has-custom-content-position is-position-bottom-center\" style=\"min-height:650px;aspect-ratio:unset;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1013\" height=\"838\" class=\"wp-block-cover__image-background wp-image-235 size-full\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Ann-Shores-K6SHO.jpeg\" style=\"object-position:58% 41%\" data-object-fit=\"cover\" data-object-position=\"58% 41%\" srcset=\"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Ann-Shores-K6SHO.jpeg 1013w, https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Ann-Shores-K6SHO-300x248.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Ann-Shores-K6SHO-768x635.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1013px) 100vw, 1013px\" \/><span aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-cover__background has-background-dim-0 has-background-dim\" style=\"background-color:#73625e\"><\/span><div class=\"wp-block-cover__inner-container has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-cover-is-layout-constrained\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Ann-Shores-K6SHO.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My name is Ann Shores, K6SHO.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I got started with ham radio sometime in 2016, I believe. So I had been involved in CERT, the Community Emergency Response Team, and we had a little training just using simple walkie-talkies. Skip Fedanzo gave the training, and I had known Skip through CERT. And we did this radio training, and we played around and spread out, and we climbed up the tower that&#8217;s in the middle of the Village Shopping Center, among other places, and we, you know, transmitted messages. And I thought, gosh, this is kind of fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And someone who was there that day, and I can&#8217;t remember her name, was a ham. And she kept encouraging me, oh, you should get your ham license.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I&#8217;m not quite sure what I thought people like that looked like and acted like, and, but I didn&#8217;t picture me as any part of that somehow. I probably thought it was some old white guy in the basement with his headphones on. And I was like, no, I don&#8217;t want to do that. But, you know, she explained to me about these things called Ham-and-Cram. And I, I was, you know, really just a one-day commitment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I thought, oh, well, I can, you know, commit one day. But I kept having conflicts, and she kept pushing it. And eventually, I ran out of excuses, and I went, and I did the Ham-and-Cram.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it had not occurred to me before the exam that I could have studied besides the cram session. I saw someone with the AARL book on how to get your technician license. I was like, oh, there&#8217;s a book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This was a revelation to me. But nevertheless, I passed. I recognized a few of the questions reminded me of physics I was supposed to have learned in high school and haven&#8217;t thought about in the meantime. Ohm&#8217;s law. No idea. But, you know, it&#8217;s a multiple choice test with a known question and answer set. And I had seen all the correct answers. And I have no idea what my score was, but I passed. And now I thought, oh, crap, they think I know what I&#8217;m doing now. And I did not know what I was doing!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, I got some advice from Skip on what radio to buy. So I bought a radio. It was not a Baofeng. And eventually it was suggested I should go shadow somebody at a public service event. And I think it was the Dipsea. It might&#8217;ve been the Double Dipsea, but I was up at Cardiac. And Michael Fisher, this is the first time I met Michael Fisher, was there. And Stanton was there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Michael coached me and let me get on the air, encouraged me to get on the air. And I thought, oh, darn it, this is fun. Um, and I was hooked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I signed up for all the public service events I could after that. And to this day, I still pretty much sign up for all the public service events that I can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the public service events, we have certainly assisted people, sometimes just by being out there with our yellow vests and looking like we are supposed to know what we&#8217;re doing. And people will come up to us and ask for help sometimes. Or, if we&#8217;re out there on the trail, I tend to say to people, \u201cOh, how you doing?\u201d Or \u201cHow&#8217;s it going?\u201d Or something which people don&#8217;t like to be asked, \u201cAre you okay?\u201d If they&#8217;re fine, they might take what I have said to them as a friendly greeting. And they&#8217;ll say, \u201cGood, how&#8217;s it going for you?\u201d Something like that. But I have had people who need help respond and say, \u201cI need help.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The most drastic thing that ever happened to me at a public service event was a woman who was having an asthma attack. I think that&#8217;s the only time I called an emergency on the air. And Germaine was actually with me, she was not yet a member of MARS, I had, I know her through my hiking group, and I had mentioned to her I was going to do this thing. And she said, Oh, that kind of sounds like fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I said, Why don&#8217;t you come along? I&#8217;m hiking a portion of the Dipsea Trail. And I knew she had her ham license. And I thought, you know, I could use some company, why not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And Germaine is a retired nurse. And she was there the day this woman was having an asthma attack on the Dipsea Trail. The woman kept trying to keep running, when she really should have stopped. And she was saying, \u201cOh, I have my inhaler in my fanny pack.\u201d And Germaine was struggling to try and get it out of her fanny pack for her, but she was trying to keep running. It was bizarre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">People can be so determined and so focused. And she just wouldn&#8217;t stop. And she eventually sort of draped herself over a log because she thought it would help her with her breathing or something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And the EMTs came down and administered some oxygen. And she actually kept running after that. And that&#8217;s the most drastic thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To most people, it is very weird that I love to go out and do public service events. I mean, how do I explain why I love that when I try to recruit people to do it? And I think it&#8217;s because I&#8217;m working with a team of people who I like, and we&#8217;re doing something important to help accomplish an important goal. And that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s always gratifying.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I do not have an extensive science background. So the electronics part does not come easily to me. I&#8217;ve never soldered anything in my life yet, even to this day. And while I mastered the multiple choice questions for the exams, up to the Extra level, I don&#8217;t remember any of that stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don&#8217;t remember Ohm\u2019s Law. I can make all my radios work. I&#8217;m good at the operations side of it. I am not good at the electronics side of it. And so I wish I were better at, and could be more helpful at, you know, setting up antennas and diagnosing problems. But, that&#8217;s not where my strengths are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I help teach basic radio operations for our local CERT groups and our local neighborhood response groups. And I always start by, why are we doing this? Why are we here? Why do radios? And most people say, oh, in case the cell towers go out and say, yep, that&#8217;s one reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But there are other reasons. And I talk to them about situational awareness, being able to broadcast information, being able to shift assignments or, you know, go home after your shift is done and hand the radio to someone else. And you don&#8217;t need to make sure that everyone&#8217;s got this new person&#8217;s cell phone number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">People keep thinking that this is an obsolete technology. And people have the misconceptions that I used to suffer from about who is a ham and how hard it is or not.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Well, there are lots and lots of aspects of this hobby. I personally don&#8217;t get involved in contesting or many of the other aspects. I pretty much do public service. And twice I&#8217;ve been on the Pomponito to operate that for Museum Ships on the Air, which is a really interesting, fascinating history. You know, if you go down there with say Jerry Foster, who served on a boat (I&#8217;m told submarines are boats and not ships). He served on a boat just like that one. And I got him to, Milt was there as well. So he gave Milt and me a fabulous tour all over the boat one day, including the places the public isn&#8217;t generally allowed to go. I had lunch with the two of them and, you know, heard some amazing stories of their periods of time in the service and really felt it was an honor to be sitting there hearing these stories. So that was a great experience.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think it&#8217;s a lot of fun!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Recorded on May 18, 2026 in Mill Valley<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My name is Ann Shores, K6SHO.&nbsp; I got started with ham radio sometime in 2016, I believe. So I had been involved in CERT, the Community Emergency Response Team, and we had a little training just using simple walkie-talkies. Skip Fedanzo gave the training, and I had known Skip through CERT. And we did this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":139,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"oral-history","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-286","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":293,"href":"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/286\/revisions\/293"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}