You Know You're a Ham When...

This list came from the Portland Amateur Radio Club website, that notes: "Originated by Mike Lazaroff KB3RG. Downloaded from the 'Wireless Institute of Australia, New South Wales Division' Web Pages on the Internet, and slightly Anglicised by myself.

• The only time you get up at 6am is for a hamfest.
• You know you can run all your home appliances on your equipment back-up battery.
• Someone in a Music shop asks you what bands you like and you answer two meters and seventy centimeters.
• A bank clerk asks you to spell your name and you do so phonetically.
• In a conversation, you wait for the Roger tone before speaking.
• You hear a scraping sound when driving through multi-storey car parks.
• A band opening is more important than a grand opening.
• Sight-seeing on holiday amounts to looking at rooftops for antennas.
• The radios in your car are worth more than your car.
• When you walk out of the house you not only feel your pockets for your keys and your wallet, but also your hip for your handheld.
• Your child's schoolteacher calls you on the phone to ask why your child identified countries on the world map as JA, ZL, VE, G, UA and XE.
• If you refer to your house as "Ohm, sweet Ohm".
• You're talking on the phone and end every sentence with "(callsign) this is (callsign), over".
• Your prime criterion for a new car is that it have zero ignition noise.
• You and your girlfriend/wife hike to the top of a famous mountain, but rather than enjoy the magnificent sunset and giving her a kiss, you fire up the Hand Portable to see how many repeaters you can hit.
• You realize that you've been studying code too long because you try and find out who did it in 'Inspector Morse' by listening to the background music.
• You look at the Pennine Mountain Range and try to figure out how to get an antenna mounted on the highest peak.
• You look at the Severn Bridge and develop a plan to get it to resonate on 160 meters.