"Greg Courville" wrote in message
...
Thank you for responding.
I know that it is unfair to draw generalizations about the amateur
community
from posts on a newsgroup. And I am not trying to say that it's the
old-timers who are causing all the trouble. I'm sorry it came out that way
(and I realize that it's mostly the immature jerks, not the old-timers,
doing the name-calling). It just gets me really depressed to see that well
more than half of the posts in this group have nothing to do with the
hobby,
and were written for the sole purpose of hurting other people.
I would like to state that, despite being a no-code tech, and despite the
fact that learning morse is the only thing keeping me from a general-class
license, I support the code test. I agree that ham radio has drastically
"dumbed-down" over the past several years, and I agree that it's not good
for the hobby. However, I hate it when I see people looked down upon
simply
because they're lowly technicians. I hate seeing the
"code/no-code"-related
flame-wars that erupt every day. If people confined their comments to
civilized discussion and debate, we wouldn't have this problem. There will
never be a total agreement as to whether the code requirement should be
dropped, but there's no reason for people to express their opinions like
raving lunatics. People who just want to exchange clever insults should
find
a different newsgroup.
On a side-note, I have not ever been insulted by any member of this group.
I
am basing my opinion solely on the threads I read every day.
I hope I have not offended anybody by what I have posted so far, and I
encourage further response.

-KG6SGY

There are many of us who do not look down on Technicians or consider them
lowly. In the club to which I belong, our most expert satellite operator is
a Technician. Everyone respects his knowledge in this area. Another
Technician was our expert on VHF SSB including propagation, antennas, etc.
Although now a General, he was well respected when he was still a
Technician.

Unfortunately, there are way too many people who get their licenses and
become strictly "repeater creatures". Those who combine this with being
disrepectful of experienced hams tend to rub people the wrong way. As in
anything else, we tend to be unduly affected by the few bad apples and
forget that there are a lot of good people working at their personal
development.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE