"Jim Hampton" wrote in message
...
Good post, Jim

Which Jim?

I do agree with you about the antics of a few.

'Tis a shame indeed.

A few Yahoo groups have
started - at least one of them with the premise of no flames and everyone
is
welcome. I can't believe how rapidly it has grown (nor can I believe how
many new licenses have been obtained). Unbelievable what can be
accomplished when you get rid of the finger pointing (and the new folks,
both those without tickets and those who have just obtained them are
asking
questions about operating procedures, antennas, coax - all the kinds of
questions that so many other groups could cover if they just got past the
finger pointing and flames).

Agreed. I personally find that the following approach works pretty well. CB
QSO's on SSB generally have something in common with AR QSO's, "what kind of
gear are you running?" The minute I tell them I'm using a 40m dipole through
a tuner, I usually get one of two responses. "Are you an amateur?" usually
comes from those wha are also ARO's. "What's that and how does it work?"
comes from those who are genuinely interested. I'm all too happy to oblige
them. Funny thing is the 40m doublet actually shows a 1.4:1 SWR on 27.3850
MHz (Ch. 38) with the tuner offline, go figure.

73 from Rochester, NY
Jim AA2QA

--
73 de Bert
WA2SI