Ahhh someone has finally spoken the truth. How refreshing. We will always have the one percenters in any hobby, activity or other rallying point. When you remove the barriers to admittance you simply let in more one percenters, so now that one percent equals many thousands instead of the hundreds that got through before no code, incentive licensing etc. Its not the gold coaster filled with pride anymore guys, its become the redneck yatch club. Lets help out and team up with the new guys that are not part of the one percenters and you'll find that most of them would have eventually overcome the barriers. Most of the garbage ends up on 2 meter fm and 75 phone that leaves lots of bands and modes for the real amateurs (no coders included) to enjoy. And that doesn't mean that 2 fm and 75 phone are for loosers, by no means. When you swim in a community pool you just stay out of the nasty end and enjoy whats left. If the non-morons get mad and go away then the whole pool becomes nasty. Stay in the hobby, continue to do it the "right" way (lead by example), have fun, ignore the morons, pay attention to the newbies that show promise and the hobby just might survive. Morphed a bit but survive non the less. I welcome the influx of interest good or bad. Without it we would not be enjoying all the new rigs, antennas and accessories that are now on the market since the manufacturers were dropping like flies when we were more of a closed snobish hobby with dwindling numbers. The yahoos don't quite know what to make of the advanced DSP, high quality RF amps, Ops specific radios like the FT847 or IC910 or other inovations like the 1.2 ghz data stuff etc. but it wouldn't be rolling out of the factories if they weren't swelling the ranks of ham radio with new hams good or bad. C U on the bottom end of 160 and 80 ... or 40 SSB on Sunday mornings .... or 20 PSK mid week ... or 6 during that sudden opening on an indian summer morning ... or 10 FM around the greyline ... or, well you get the picture (I Hope) The new hams are not ALL ABOUT doom and gloom unless we (oldtimers?) let it happen and waste all our time crying about it on the newsgroups instead of being on the air communicating, contesting, experimenting and just plain olde fashioned hamming. Acting the fool (or just sounding like one) on the air and calling it fun is the sport of Morons. Serious, intelligent amateur radio is also fun and can usually be found by just changing the frequency, band or mode. All in all ham radio is getting better or at least has the potential to get better, bigger, broader in scope etc. as long as we don't waste our time bellyaching about the few that slipped under the ever diminishing radar. In fact before all this new ham bashing I remember we had a proportional amount of bad eggs then as well. We just seemed to either tolerate or take care of the problems in a different way. Wake up amateurs, the only way you loose the hobby is if you let go of the reigns.