{"id":304,"date":"2026-08-13T23:17:35","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T23:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/?page_id=304"},"modified":"2026-08-14T13:14:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:14:33","slug":"oral-history-rich-cochran-ag6qr","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/home\/oral-histories\/oral-history-rich-cochran-ag6qr\/","title":{"rendered":"Oral History: Rich Cochran, AG6QR"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-cover is-light has-custom-content-position is-position-bottom-center\" style=\"min-height:650px;aspect-ratio:unset;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1013\" height=\"836\" class=\"wp-block-cover__image-background wp-image-239 size-full\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Rich-Cochran-AG6QR.jpeg\" style=\"object-position:48% 30%\" data-object-fit=\"cover\" data-object-position=\"48% 30%\" srcset=\"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Rich-Cochran-AG6QR.jpeg 1013w, https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Rich-Cochran-AG6QR-300x248.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Rich-Cochran-AG6QR-768x634.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:#7c8682\"><\/span><div class=\"wp-block-cover__inner-container has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-cover-is-layout-constrained\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-large-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Rich-Cochran-AG6QR.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My name is Rich Cochran. I am AG6QR.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I got started with radio when I was about eight years old and my dad put a shortwave radio in my bedroom. And that was a magical box that allowed me to listen to stations over in Europe and Africa and the Far East. But of course, I couldn&#8217;t transmit, but it ignited my interest in the shortwave bands and it was fascinating. And of course, I spent many, many more hours than I was allowed to, at least late at night with those headphones on, listening to that thing when, while my parents were asleep. But that&#8217;s not how I got into ham radio.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I was aware of ham radio and, but, but I knew that in order to actually get a ham radio license, I needed to learn Morse code. And I did not have the patience to learn Morse code, but I remained a shortwave listener. And I also got into scanning FM radio and listening to police and listening to hams and always had a wide band radios to listen to from the time I was about eight years old until I finally got my ham license about 15 years ago. What got me into ham radio is that I found out that I could get a full license to get back on those shortwave bands without learning Morse code. I found that they&#8217;d done, done away with the, with the requirement for Morse code. And so I got my license and then, you know, I live in Terra Linda in a fairly small lot, and no room to put up big antennas and everything. And I wanted to be able to transmit to Europe or transmit to long distances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I knew the best way to do that is to use Morse code because it sends a very tightly concentrated frequency burst for a very long distance with low power. And I could do that also away from home. It&#8217;s really easy to set up a portable station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I needed to learn Morse code in order to do that. And so the thing that had kept me out of ham radio became the most important thing to learn. And now that I had a license, I had a reason to learn Morse code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By now there were all sorts of computer aided things that could drill Morse code much more easily than the LP records that my dad got me when I was 10 years old. So I then learned Morse code and I&#8217;m not an expert on it, but I can make contacts with it now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I like the technology and there is still something magical about being able to send a signal up in the air and, and let it land many States away or even an ocean away. It&#8217;s kind of geeky that way because nowadays with the internet, it&#8217;s very easy to contact people far away, but it&#8217;s not the same as calling CQ and having some random individual that you&#8217;ve never heard of before answer your CQ. So that&#8217;s the fun thing about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then sort of unrelated, but it&#8217;s also fun to do public service announcements and have to set up a station at a rest stop and be able to communicate in ways that really help an event out and provide a service to people. So that&#8217;s also fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Occasionally you hear, especially on some of the HF bands, especially on the 7200, there are a few people who have some pathological psychology who decide that the most fun they can have is ruining things for others. There really, really aren&#8217;t very many of those people, but it doesn&#8217;t take very many to really make you want to spin the dial and, and, and leave. Um, so that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s the only thing that I dislike is when people are rude on the air, uh, but it doesn&#8217;t happen so often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ham radio is not a good way to meet girls. But then not many people get into this hobby, for that reason.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think it&#8217;s hard to give general advice as to what might inspire people to explore ham radio because different people have different interests. There are a lot of people who like the technology side of it and want to be able to experiment with the electronics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are other people who don&#8217;t want to have anything to do with that. The electronics is just a necessary evil in order to do the kind of communications they want to do. There are some people who really don&#8217;t care about the communications either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;ve talked to one guy who says, I like having the ability to communicate, but I don&#8217;t actually like to communicate. I liked just having the ability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My aspirational activity is portable CW operations and setting up a CW station in the field and contacting people far away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don&#8217;t have a chance to do that very often. And I&#8217;m a father, my youngest kid is in high school, so he&#8217;s getting more independent. But for the past 15 or so years, I love, I love, I love my kids, but they sometimes get in the way of radio activities, which is fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But that means that I have not had the opportunity to spend the time that I would like to, pursuing my aspirational CW activities. So what I&#8217;ve been doing more than anything else is I do VHF, UHF operation from the car, from home, checking into nets, the sort of routine stuff, which is fun. And it also allows me to connect with people in the area and meet and that sort of thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But it&#8217;s not the thing that ignited my imagination when I was eight years old, listening to that shortwave radio. So I, my goal is as my son gets more and more independent and is to find some more time to play radio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Recorded on June 27, 2026 @ Field Day in Novato, CA<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My name is Rich Cochran. I am AG6QR.\u00a0 I got started with radio when I was about eight years old and my dad put a shortwave radio in my bedroom. And that was a magical box that allowed me to listen to stations over in Europe and Africa and the Far East. But of course, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":139,"menu_order":11,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"oral-history","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-304","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/304","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=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":306,"href":"https:\/\/w6sg.net\/site_2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/304\/revisions\/306"}],"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=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}