"starwars" wrote in message
elinux.net...
Jack Twilley wrote:

Huh. I'm so glad I'm not an old, bitter, frustrated person. I might
run the risk of being a real ham.

Age has nothing to do with Dan's personality problems. I've been
licensed for 50 years, took all my exams except for the first one
(Novice) in front of FCC examiners, but I've moved on since then.

Some people sit back and try to live in the past (military days,
ham radio license -- whatever) while others continue to anticipate
the future. Dan's "real ham" mantra is a plea for respect which
arises out of his own insecurity.

I've been there, done that, got the ARRL 35 wpm certificate, and
then proceeded to persue other things. It is my belief that ham
radio has become quite "uncool" to newbies in these days of
the internet, personal computers, Wi-Fi, and the rest of the
technology that attracts today's bright kids. I put ham radio on
the back burner way back in 1980 when my interests also turned to
computers and the Arpanet. I've built my own machines, written
operating systems for them, and developed software in persuit of
my technical interests. I think that the "real hams" of the 80's
did very similar things and enlarged their own worlds beyond the
narrow view that the SPST switch throwers (CW dudes) seem to espouse
as "real" ham radio.

As the other "real hams" left the Dan types behind, they became
insecure and increasingly strident. Ignore them. They not only
don't matter any more, they are not "real hams" themselves. They
are now merely old timers who couldn't keep up.



You make some valid points there. And I probably fit most to all of that.
Unfortunatly this has NOT happened to me since the 80s or before. It
happened as soon as I came up to these newsgroups. And when the CB type of
operations came to HF. And when CBers turned ham radio VHF/UHF into a pizza
ordering service.

Real Ham Radio is Morse Code, and decent Voice operations. All history.
And I hate that. Your right.

Dan/W4NTI