On 02/08/2019 09:01, Roger Hayter wrote:
Gareth's was W7 now W10 Downstairs Computer
wrote:

On 01/08/2019 15:32, Roger Hayter wrote:
...But equally you could pass the RAE and become an excellent and
popullar radio amateur fifty years ago while not knowing a great about
technical matters.

Untrue, dangerously so.

Amateur radio has always been a technical pursuit; the operator's hobby
is CB Radio, and on the amateur bands are a large number of
CBers masquerading as radio amateurs.

That is no doubt what you would like to be true, and I have a lot of
sympathy with that aspiration. But it is not in fact true, and there
were always, at least since the 1960s which is what I know about, a
large number of amateurs interested in operating (and often highly
skilled and knowledgable about it) and not particularly interested in
anything technical. Equally, a lot copied circuits without being much
interested in the theory. So I simply do not agree with you about the
facts, as opposed to preferences.


As you so rightly say, the CBer-masquerading-as-a-radio-amateur
is not a new phenomenon.

Operating is not a skill nor something to be knowledgeable about, else
5-year-old kiddies would be unable to use their mobile phones.