"Ryan, KC8PMX" wrote:

"Phil Kane" wrote:

Let's have the present Element 1
replaced by this "rules" element -
it is more relevant to all amateurs
on any band, any class, any mode.


Should that not have been something
that should have been done at least 10,
20 or even 30 years ago???


Or 40, 50, or even 60, years ago. Which makes one wonder why this, and
some of the other extended test ideas, are being advocated now. I cannot
help but suspect this is another example of the intolerance of newcomers by
some existing Hams (and also a way for some to build themselves up by
putting others down). Darn few of us knew everything when we started (I
still don't). Every single person in this newsgroup, every existing Ham, has
made mistakes (even those who started 40, 50, and even 60 years ago). Yet,
when a newcomer does the same today, it is not simply inexperience, but
instead malicious, or ignorance, or even the ruin of Amateur Radio. Some
point to it to show how much better they are than that. And calls for a
solution to this pending crisis are shouted from the rooftops. There is no
need for proof of a wider problem - a few isolated examples are always
enough for the intolerant. And, once ignited, intolerance fuels itself. I
truly hope I'm wrong about this, but that suspicion continues to grow.


Dwight Stewart (W5NET)

http://www.qsl.net/w5net/