The Value Of Google+ To The Ham Community

I’ll keep this post brief as there is a partially built 40M regen sitting in front of me that I’m keen to continue with.  As you probably know, Google’s version of Facebook, called Google Plus, launched on a limited basis recently. As of right now, in order to join, you have to receive an invite from someone who is already on. These invites aren’t that hard to get though. In fact, if you look me up on QRZ and send me an e-mail with your e-mail address, I’ll send you an invite so you can try it out for yourself.

The one thing that I like about Google+ over Facebook is that I can use it to keep in touch with my amateur radio contacts in a way that I didn’t with Facebook.  I reserve Facebook for people that I actually know in person, so the addition of a lot of radio amateurs, many of whom I didn’t know personally, wouldn’t have worked well at all.  I’ve found Twitter a good way to communicate with other amateurs, and now Google+ seems to work as a good complement to that. Google+ allows you to create “circles” of friends. When you post,  you decide which “circles” get to see it. That way, I can post pictures of my various homebrew projects and radio musings without boring my regular friends and family silly. Likewise, I don’t really want to dilute my ham radio stream with too many of the types of comments I’d make to friends and family. Google+ works brilliantly for this.

I realize that social media are anathema to some, but if you’d like to try Google+ out, find me on QRZ and send me an e-mail with your e-mail.  It’s surprising how quickly you’ll find other hams there.

Now, to post a picture of yesterday’s progress on my 40M regen on Google+ (which will be blogged about here when it’s finished), and then some more building!