In article , Dave Heil
writes:

N2EY wrote:

"Bill Sohl" wrote in message
rthlink.net...
"N2EY" wrote in message
...

I believe there are a good number of family member techs
who probably have limited desire even to get on HF at all.

Around here we had lots of "honeydew hams" in the '80s and '90s
(people who got ham licenses to keep in touch with family members, not
because they were interested in radio itself). Nice folks but many
disappeared when cell phones became cheap and good coverage. FRS/GMRS
took some othere. And some discovered they were interested in radio
for its own sake, too. I think that phenomenon is the main reason for
the somewhat-lower renewal percentage of Techs.

Overheard on a 2m repeater in this area of the Ohio Valley yesterday:

"KC8--- this is KC8***, come back".

"KC8*** this is KC8--- . I have a copy on you. What's yer twenty?"

"I'm up here on the hill but you're scratchy. You must be overmodulatin
or somthing".

"Well I'm copyin' you pretty good considering the distance between us".

"Yeah, 4-Roger. It's pretty amazin' that these little hand held radios
will talk this far from each other".

It is a brave new world of amateur radio.

Nothing new there, Dave, that sort of thing has been common for well over a
decade. You get a bye because you were out of CONUS in the service of our
country all that time.

Most of those folks eventually wise up in time.

I am reminded of the QST article, way back in the 1950s, about some of the
doozies various manufacturers had to deal with:

- There was the ham who bought a receiver (I think it was a Hallicrafters, in
fact) took it home and hooked it up and proceeded to listen to hams. After a
time, he got a microphone, plugged it into the PHONES jack (but not all the
way), flipped the SEND-RECEIVE switch to SEND, and proceeded to call CQ. He
wanted his money back....

- Another, rather than RTFM, carted his receiver downtown for at least two
round trips before he finally grasped the function of the RADIO-PHONO switch.

- Then there was guy who literally "fired up" his new Harvey Wells because
(again) he did not RTFM, and failed to remove the cardboard shipping padding
inside the rig that kept the tubes in their sockets during transit.

My personal favorite:

- Ham's receiver seemed a bit less sensitive than usual, so he lifted the lid
and tightened all the loose screws - most of which were mica compression
trimmer capacitors.

Nothing new under the sun.

73 de Jim, N2EY

"He tightened all the loose screws"