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new kenwood?
Noon-Air wrote:
What kinds of rigs/stations did the rest of you *start* with?? What do you think that *most* young prospective HAMs would be able to handle to get into the hobby?? The problem is the competition. You can buy a NEW computer for $200, hook it up to broadband and be able to talk around the world, download video in almost real time, get the news, sports and things that you will never see or hear on the radio. No tests, NO MORSE CODE, no controls. The days of electronics experiemnters going to the "radio shop" and buying some wire, tubes and spare parts and hearing people from around the world are long gone. The mystery is gone, the parts stores are gone and it seems that the desire to work to get an education is all lost in the rush. Cheap rigs are simply not going to do it. There are so many used rigs on the market these days that go for $300-$400 that even mainland China with their factories that pay so little can compete. As for new rigs, everyone wants a simple voice rig with a digital VFO, a gazillion memories and an AUTOMATIC antenna tuner. You might as well not even include CW, most prospective hams can't be bothered to learn it. Education and outreach is the only thing that will. Apple computer started the concept of "product evangelism", preaching how good the Macintosh was to the "great uncomputered". Their head evangelist, Guy Kawasaki wrote several books on the subject. If ham radio is to continue, you need to "product evangelize" ham radio. Go out and give demos to schools, scout troups, youth groups. If there are any kids in your family or neighbors that are interested in computers, take them to hamfests, they'll go for the computers, but the radios may catch their interest. It's also about time to change the license tests. Drop morse code. Add more good operating practice. Here in Israel I hear mostly European hams. They are polite and careful operators. When the "skip rolls in" to use a term from another service, it seems like CB. Gone are the polite carefull guys, the U.S. phone bands sound like "lid city". And the CW is not much better, most of it is sent by computer and the same old garbage you hear on SSB, sent by people who can type and have a computer program to copy Morse. Another pet peeve of mine is sstv. It was "neat" seeing it live from the Mercury space capsules. Fourty years later it has no technological relevance. Why do we have to give up 20-30kHz of the 20 meter band 24/7 for it? Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667 IL Fax: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838 Visit my 'blog at http://geoffstechno.livejournal.com/ |
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