Kim W5TIT wrote:

"Dave Heil" wrote in message
...
"Carl R. Stevenson" wrote:


The point is, the world (and ham radio) is NOT going to end ... despite
your rants that it is.

Actually, on the contrary, if these changes hadn't happened and we were
still stuck in the spark era (i.e., if cranky olde fartz like you had
stopped
the progress of ham radio over the years), we WOULD be in danger.

You aren't much younger than I am, Carl. You just haven't been involved
in amateur radio as long. Further, you remained a tech for a couple of
decades until the morse testing speed was dropped. Since that time,
you've become an HF SSB op. This latest rant shows you to be as cranky
as anyone else here.


And your notes of Carl's history with ham radio seem at most, perfuntory.
They have nothing to do with the fact that Carl posted his comments to this
thread. Unless you believe that Carl must be exactly equal with you before
you consider any importance to his comments.

As you are, so is Carl in my age group. Carl sat on a Tech ticket for
2 1/2 decades until the requirements were lowered. Carl crowed about
the large numbers of highly technical people being kept out of ham radio
by "high speed" morse tests. Extra Class Carl spends his time chasing
DX on HF SSB with a commercial rig. Carl is as cranky as anyone here.
He's just cranky with a view opposite mine. I offer his sermon as
proof.

Does one have to be in ham
radio exactly as long as you, be as old as you, have been on HF SSB and CW
as much as you, before you think they're "worthy?"

Why no, Kim. Then again, I didn't write anything like that. Perhaps you
just had a feeling...


If you want to see what presents the biggest danger to the future of
ham radio LOOK IN THE MIRROR ... the enemy you fear is yourself,
with your backward thinking, unwillingness to accept progress, and lack
of tolerance for newcomers (unless, of course, they've suffered through
the same fraternity hazing rituals that you had to endure, lo those many
years ago and think in exactly the backward, narrowminded ways that
you do).

When you're done looking in the mirror, you can look a your cronies,
Larry, Dave Heil, and the whole list of like-thinkers... they are also
part of the enemy you fear ... for they think and act essentially the
same way as you do.

I note that you've reverted to your original "Big Mouth Carl" persona,
Squiggy. The leopard does not change his spots, even if they fade and
his coat begins to look a little worn and thin in places. Your tirade
includes some tired and quite familiar terms like "fraternity hazing
rituals", "suffered" and "endure", "backward" and "narrowminded".


Those terms are quite appropriately used.

I'm sure you mean what you've written even if it isn't borne out by
fact.

Perhaps you like your terms,
better. It's always interesting to note how you quickly change to
name-calling ("Squiggy", "Big Mouth Carl") when you see things you don't
like.

Did you bother to read what Carl wrote about me?

Is this another chapter in your book?

No chapter in my book is devoted to Carl. If you'd like a copy, I can
sell you one at a pre-publication discount.

Go to your library and get a
book on communication--somewhere in there you'll see part where it says that
resorting to name-calling doesn't provide substantiation nor clarification
for thoughts, only provides that the person has nothing more important to do
but resort to infantile pouting.

Thanks for saving me the trouble of going to the library. I'll attempt
to filter out your additions and paraphrasing.


THERE is where the REAL danger to the future of ham radio lies ...
in people who are so married to/stuck in its past that they despise
any thought of change, progress, and the newcomers that it will
bring (unless the newcomers are acceptable "clones" cast in your
own image).

I submit that you don't really know where the "REAL" danger to the
future of ham radio lies. Simply lowering requirements and standards is
not "progress" in anyone's book. Newcomers have always been welcomed if
they're good ops. A lid is a lid and we already have enough of them.


The requirements have been adjusted (lowered if you like) to accommodate
current trends and shift focus from older technology to newer.

"Adjusted" is so cute and newspeak. We're still using the older
technology in question, you might recall.


The standards have not been lowered at all.

So the requirements have been lowered but the standards haven't?


However, those newcomers are the future of ham radio ... for us older
guys will surely die, and if there aren't younger folks to replace us
ham
radio will die with us.

There have always been newcomers in amateur radio. Old timers always
die and newcomers always arrive. Newcomers may be the future (a great
many newcomers have gray hair) but we're the present, not the past. The
future has not yet arrived. Even you don't know what the future holds,
as much as you'd like to see yourself as a visionary.


In your stumbling around, above, your forgot to leave a point.

Not at all, Kim. You just neglected to digest it. Most new hams aren't
new people. They aren't young. Many are quite old. A great many "old
timers" have decades left in them. They aren't going away. They are
not only the past, but the present of amateur radio.


It's up to us to WELCOME and ENCOURAGE
them ... their ways will not be the ways of the past ... things change
and
nobody can freeze time.

I welcome and encourage them. Some of them will become good ops. Some
won't.


There's a difference between encouraging only those with whom you agree, and encouraging *everyone*. When you say that "standards" have been lowered, you send a message you may not be meaning to send.

I wrote that standards were lowered because that is, in fact what took
place (again). I did not place blame on newcomers. They didn't lower
the standard. I did not place a qualifier on the welcoming of
newcomers. Do you ever read the words I've written before replying to
them?


But insulting, berating, demeaning them, and trying
to keep them out is not the way ...

I'm not insulting, berating or demeaning them. I might insult, berate
and demean you but not them. Newcomers aren't required to take
responsibility for you.


Your messages come across as attempts to insult, berate, and demean, Dave.

Good. I intended to insult, berate and demean Carl. I wrote no such
thing about newcomers. You didn't read what I wrote or you could not
have come to such a conclusion.

You are very political in your approach with people here.

No kidding. Clue us in as to what you do here.

If someone does
not act and think just as you, you assert superiority.

What are you attempting to achieve in writing the sentence above? Are
you attempting to assert superiority?

Think about these things long and hard before you look yourself in
the mirror again ... without some reflection, reconsideration, and
change
in your ways, you may not like what you see ... the enemy that is YOU.

I'll take your sermon to heart about the time you begin telling us of
your own soul searching, reflection and reconsideration of opinions
which are unlike your own. Let us know if you like what you see.

(Try to be *completely* like Scrooge ... go through the change, don't
stay stuck in the first part ...)

Quit rattling your chains and moaning.


You are quite dislikable, whether you realize it or not.

I'm sure that it appears that way to someone like you, Kim. In your
view, Carl can tell others to engage in reflection and tell them to
change their ways. If similar words are directed to Carl, you find the
person "dislikable". Go hug a tree, Kim. Take a whale to lunch.

And you do seem to approach life from the comfort zone...

....whatever that means.

Dave K8MN