Hi Peter

As much as I'd like to believe this problem is isolated to radio users I
think it is actually a sociological state that the world has gotten
into. People are generally less tolerant than they use to be, more ready
to litigate, less happy, more selfish and finding that laws dont
actually reflect their concerns. ie lots of stupid ones get passed.

I came up with this upsetting conclusion some years ago and was intent
on isolating myself out in country NSW and choosing what amateurs I
would communicate with. In my case those only interested in technical
discussion and the joy of expermenting. Given at the time this
restricted me to 50MHz there was a good chance that a lot of
undesirables werent interested in optimizing their stations and thus
wouldnt appear as often. (Why would you build an expensive 2m SSB
station for example just to get angry at someone?)

I think the world will generally get worse, amateur radio included.
Apologies for the prediction but I really do think it is that bad.

I have however moved to Texas in the US. The veil of "niceness" here
seems to come from the good manners associated with local religous
beliefs. There is also a great lack of person to person contact outside
of shopping and church (if you exclude family) and the concern that
walking on ones property will get you shot! Virtually nobody walks
anywhere and cell phones are the escape for those that have to drive! I
guess if you dont interface with people you arent likley to get into
conflicts with each other!

Amateur radio here tends to be held in much higher esteem than on Oz.
This is especially so after the recent hurricanes and general civil
emergency use during tornado season. (now!) 2m FM gets a lot of civil
and 3rd party traffic but I do hear occasional nasty people populating
20m. They seem to be within a few hundred km. Thats my fault I guess for
putting up an antenna with a high angle radiation pattern!

Cheers Bob W5/VK2YQA East Texas

Cosmo wrote:
I'm currently listening to 7.070Mhz. The time is 19:20EDT