Red Wave Radio

Hey you guys think this is getting easier, in UK you only have two classes
of lisences, and only one code test (12wpm).  This is getting simpler to get
the hobby going and stop it from dieing out.  No one is saying that knowing
how to comunicate CW at 20 words per minute is stupid, but CW is  getting
older and is not needed as muchfor communication as used to. I think that
12wpm is enough no one needs to know 20wpm to communicate on morse properly!

Dmitry

I have seldom heard anyone pubicly admit this.  I, too, went silent as a
***ager in 1964, after growing weary of the fact that *nearly* everyone
I shared the interest with was either socially handicapped,
conversationally vacant, a know-it-all, or perhaps suspected of being
*** by most non-hams.  I loved learning, designing, scrounging,
building and operating - all the things many now (rightly) bemoan for
their absence today - but an insightful QSO was rare, and I often had to
keep my non-ham friends away from the shack so they wouldn't hear the
sorry stuff that passed for discussion or intelligence on phone, and have
them wonder if there was something weird about me for playing radio.  It
also seems perennial that *many* hams are incurable braggarts - always
reminding others of their job, degree, type of license, callsign, number
of beers drunk, claimed low price paid for latest toy, claimed personal
political expertise, claimed insight into why YOUR rig doesn't sound as
good as it should, whatever.  Most people in other areas of life call
this "bullshit."  There are a some very fine people who are hams, and I
often wonder how they stand the others.  I used to bristle at the idea of
no-code, dumbing-down of exams, and the like; now, I think they ought to
just give licenses away to anyone who asks for one and will pay the fee.
 We might even hear something interesting on the air for a change...what
if we limited all newbie hams to 250w on AM & CW (no SSB or FM), 160-6,
using only all-tube rcvrs, homebrew all-tube xmtrs with rocks, and
homebrew antennas?  We could have the VE's check only the *station*!  
Frig the dumbed-down "tests" and dah-dits!  And let's allow music
transmissions - sure would attract more interest than someone telling
everyone how brilliant they are that they can stick a power supply onto a
55-yr-old ART-13 and talk through it without frying the rig (amazing -
the rig survived the whole war in air combat, but might not make it
through field day in the hands of a present-day ham), and maybe even win
an ER award for so doing because it is "old."<groan/yawn>

And while hams are often helpful in civil emergencies, who really needs
the Amateur Radio Service anymore to serve the public interest, or the
nets to pass traffic?

Yup, and that was typified by Randy Cook's immature (and poorly spelled)
response.

Randy illustrated  the VERY THING he is whining about!

The problem is not the old timer's REACTION to his generation's personal
ineffectiveness.  Rather it is the ineffectiveness itself that is the problem.

Only Randy can't deal with that! He can't even communicate ABOUT it well!

Randy is not being honest with himself.

He claims to have lost interest in ham radio, and yet here he is attempting to
discuss HAM RADIO!

What an amazingly self-contradictory guy he is!

Mr. Bean