RadioBanter - View Single Post

June 16th 05, 11:47 PM

wrote:
Mike Coslo wrote:
wrote:
Michael Coslo wrote:

. . . The ham was Gene Reynolds W3EAN
who went out of his way to answer my unending stream of questions that
night. I probably drove him nuts but I think he enjoyed it. There was
no turning back after that night, I was gonna become a ham.

I enjoyed the story, Brian.

I've enjoyed the whole trip Michael.

Me too!

But I gotta break in here. What you have
described is the real reason that people become hams. You were bitten by
the bug, and it sounds like no one was going to stop you from becoming one.

Yessir that's about right certainly in my case.

I think that's true in most cases for hams who stick around.

I too was hooked early in life, although it took a long time to finally
get my ticket. I'm just P****d that I didn't get it years earlier.

Sorry about the previous rant but once in awhile somebody around here
bumps my babble button and there I go again . . You bumped the bloomin'
button again Coslo. Rant Mode = ON

I didn't exactly leap toward the FCC office to take the test either,
far from it. One problem being that I had a number of other interests
too like photography, Boy Scouts, model railroading and GIRLS. They all
absobred my time and what little money I could scrounge via paper
routes and such.

I think that a key time to get kids interested is in middle school and
even elementary school.

While my folks cheerfully funded Scouting they did not fund any of my
other hot buttons. Probably because they knew I'd drive them broke if
they did. They did encourage my pursuit of ham radio though, I guess
they thought it had educatinal value and it kept me off the streets and
outta trouble. The latter didn't work very well though.

My folks didn't fund anything in the way of "optional interests" - if
we kids were interested, we could figure out how to fund the activity,
and/or do it
on the cheap. Which some of us proceeded to turn into an art form.

I never had an Elmer, I had no idea how to connect with a ham club when
I was 10-12 so I scrounged books and magazines about ham radio and
tuned the bands with my junk radios. When I finally got to high school
I found a bunch of hams and and "the rest is history". Took me about
five years to go from my encounter with W3EAN to passing the Novice
test and getting on the air with it.

Similar story at my end, except my Elmers were books. I was 90% of the
way to
a Novice when I finally got up the gumption to approach a local ham,
who I located by his antennas.

Now there's a bit of publicity that is being lost in ham radio today.
Time
was, everybody knew where the hams in the neighborhood lived, because
you
couldn't mistake the antennas for anything else.

Which was in a much different regime than we have today. The Novice
license was a stick and carrot ticket with the emphasis on the stick.
We had 365 days from the date the license was issued to upgrade to a
13WPM General or get booted out of ham radio.

Or you could get a Technician ticket - but that had no HF and the
written
was the same as General.

Of the dozens of local
Novices I knew I don't recall of any who failed to upgrade or bitched
about the code tests.

Me neither. In my time the Novice was 2 years but the same one-shot
no renewal no second chance ticket.

Biggest cause of dropouts in those days was lack of gear.

I think I'm very typical of the kids who got into the hobby back then
and there were great heaps of us. The adults who took up ham radio back
then were a different story, they had the money and they had control of
their lives which us kids did not have. Net result today is that us
kids from back then are obviously the grouchy old farts of today and
almost universally have disdain to one degree or another for the
current state of affairs in the giveaway requirements for licensing.

The newcomers didn't make the rules, so I see no point in being ticked
off at *them*.

It's not that we're mentally frozen in time at all, that's 100% BS.

Yep.

It's because we've been there and done it all and we know what works
and what does not given the fact that except for the current licensing
nonsense ham radio hasn't changed nearly as much as many would try to
have us believe. Fuhgeddit, we see right thru it.

Heck, take a look at the "Rotten Radio" stories by T.O.M. With a few
changes for the techological differences the same stories apply today.

Im convinced that events in the future will prove us right. Today we
have a "bloat the numbers at any cost" game which is doomed to backfire
eventually. The big question is how badly it will backfire and how much
damage will have been be done before it happens. The history of this
country over last couple decades is chock full of eamples of backing
away from failed giveaways. It's only a matter of time until ham radio
gets it's turn.

We're seeing it already. The restructuring of 2000 reduced both the
code
*and written* test requirements. Net result was a short-term peak in
numbers followed by a drop to below where we were in 2000 or even 1997.

Maybe FCC sees that - they could have dropped Element 1 back in 2003,
or any
time since, but they haven't seen fit to do so.

Whew: Got that one out of my system too. Thanks Mike.

The idea of "recruiting" people into the ARS is likely never going to
work - at least as far as snagging people that are thinking about a
hobby, but don't know what to pick up.

I agree right down the line. You can't "recruit" anybody into a hobby
unless some kernel of interest already exists in the mind of the
"target" and even then it's a dicey proposition in most cases. It's
like trying to herd cats, doesn't work. The best we can do is toss out
PR to raise the awareness of ham radio and let the chips fall where
they might. The League is in the right direction in this respect.

Yup. It has always been that way, because it's a specialized
attraction.

If you wanna be a Ham - you *know* it.

Only if you know what ham radio is. That's the problem in a nutshell.

Yupper but how one gets there varies hugely to the point where all
670,000 of us have probably taken 300,000 different routes. Compare the
way Dee got into the hobby vs. my route. How different can they get?!

Bingo.

A local oldster was inquiring as to when his license expired, because
he couldn't find his F.C.C. Wallpaper. We help him figure it out. We
need to keep the geezers on the air. I love talking to them. I hope
someone is looking out for me when I'm 91!

They're all treasures we have a responsibilty to protect. Often from
themselves. Heh.

Yep.

Is 'CNP online or should I use regular mail?

73 de Jim, N2EY
w3rv