"J. D. B." wrote in
:

I know what you mean about Elmering. Many of the new hams had to Elmer
the old CW only hams who had no idea how to operate a computer or even
use all the great new digital modes. Some of the dinos had trouble
trying to figure out the solid state rigs. They kept looking around for
things to tune like it was some boat anchor tube rig - LOL!!!

It's amazing how the dinos can operate a key, but they can't get the
hang of a mouse. We eventually had to give up. Can't teach the old dogs
new tricks so the younger and newer hams used the digital modes and the
old dinos stuck to their CW.

Although the CW types were amazed how PSK31 could be copied even when
you could not hear the other station. They admitted that you can't copy
CW if you cannot hear it.

I think we made a lot of progress on FD. Finally the dinos admitted that
there are modes that are better and more capable than CW.

One old guy even said we should give up on the CW testing and test new
hams how to use a computer and the new digital modes and that was more
relevant for today's ham radio.


I know you're right.

They where doing great until the computers crashed then the new hams
looked at us old hams, blank stares on their faces wondering what to do.
They thought Field day was over at the point. Then us dino's took over
and showed them what ham radio really was. Some nickle extra's even said
they were going practice building their code skills again. They saw you
can work stations on code that you can't work on phone or PSK31. We
taught them how to solder on PL-259s and tune portable antenna & trim wire
antennas.

We laughed when they lifted up the tri-bander and then had to take it down
again to connect up the coax. That was funny.

SC