RadioBanter - Where does the expertise of today's Radio Ham lie?

On Sun, 10 Sep 2006 12:40:48 +0100, Aspiring _REAL_ Radio Ham wrote:

I feel that I must apologise for the crocodile of immature and abusive
children who dog my every effort on Usenet, and in particular who have
tried to reduce this thread to an issuance from the cess-pit.

I have been on Usenet since 1994. In that time I have contributed many
articles on my stance towards maintaining the technical and gentlemanly
traditions of Ham Radio. For my pains I have picked up a series of
unpleasant individuals (who illustrate very well the unacceptable decline
in standards?) who resort to the most grossly offensive and gratuitously
insulting outbursts unrelated to anything that I have ever said or done.

I have _NEVER_ originated any personal attacks on anybody. I am, however,
only human, and have replied on occasion, but only in defensive
indignance.

I have _NEVER_ published any articles intended to annoy people or to
provoke them. Everything that I have published has been a sincere
expression of my stance on a number of areas, liberalism, republicanism,
pacifism, poetry, atheism, anti-plod violence, Ham Radio.

I have never claimed to be omniscient; indeed, when there have areas in
which I have been unable to understand things, I have posted queries.

I have on several occasions chastised those who use an international forum
such as Usenet to publish infantile insulting tirades. I shall continue to
do so.

I started to respond to your "FAQ" and then changed my mind, but your
persistence compels me to respond. I too have been using the 'net for a
considerable time, and FidoNet before that.

Thirty-some odd years ago I became interested in becoming a "ham". Several
years earlier I had built my first receiver and became interested in
electricity at an age when most kids are still trying to get their heads
around "See Spot run."

I met an old ham who gave me stacks of "CQ" magazine and ARRL handbooks,
most of which I read cover to cover. But, things change and I didn't get
my ticket. Eventually I wound up in the Army, working on radar systems
(among other things). I am technically inclined and currently work with
computer hardware.

I never lost interest in radio and have always been involved, one way or
another. Over the last few years I again entertained thoughts about
getting my ticket. But, things seem to have changed...and not necessarilly
for the better.

It seems to me that qualifications have been relaxed. Is this an attempt
to increase participation in an area with declining interest? I don't
know. But I do know a few current hams, and I started reading the
rec.radio.amateur.homebrew newsgroup, going back to Dec. of 2005.

I am sure that there are still many helpful hams who are good people to
know, I've read a number of them in this particular group. Unfortunately,
there seems to also be an increasing number of people whose attitudes are
repellant...including yours.

You rant about "childish insults", and immediately proceed to insult
others in the same manner. You have *your* opinion of what "ham radio" is
(or ought to be), and you announce that you are going to jam it down
everyone's throats whether they like it or not. Frankly, I really don't
see a whole lot of difference between your behaviour and that of some of
those dislikeable individuals on the 11 meter band (which you denigrate
as a whole with your repeated remarks about "Childish Broadcasters"). In
fact, your insistence that your "FAQ" "will not be shouted down" reminds
me very much of the individuals who lock down the key and proclaim "Nobody
is going to talk over me" and proceed to repeat a bunch of gibberish which
serves only to restrict and interfere with civilized conversation.

Though I tend not to participate in the nonsense which occurs in the
"normal" portion of 11 meters there are some good people there, as there
are in other areas of the spectrum and with whom I communicate. And,
despite your assertion to the contrary, there are many of us in and
outside of 11 meters who are interested in how radios work, and who
build/modify and operate our own equipment.

You also assert that "A Ham Radio licence is such a desirable thing to
have...". If it is so "desireable", then why are the standards being
relaxed so as to lower the barrier to entry? In your own "FAQ" you you say
that the standards are now "trivial" and "set for six-year-olds". What
other reason for this could there be besides a declining level of interest?

they are free with rather silly personal insults.

Pot? Kettle? Black?

One infallible way to disambiguate the CB Radio Hobbyist from the _REAL_
Radio Ham is to solicit their view of the difference between CB Radio
and Ham Radio. A Radio Ham will perceive Ham Radio to be a technical
pursuit and will perceive CB Radio to be a social communications
facility

What makes you think that *your* opinion is the only valid opinion? Or,
indeed, that it is valid at all?

Strictly a technical pursuit? Surely you jest. Even in the past when
technical knowledge and code skills were of greater importance, even "ham"
radio was a "social communications facility". The fact that much of the
communication may have been technical in nature in no way lessens the
"social communication" aspect.

There is not today, nor has there ever been, a need to go out
and encourage and press children, children who have never expressed an
interest in Ham Radio, to come into our shacks. Such an activity should
cause eyebrows to be raised - what normal well-adjusted adults seek the
social acquaintance of children?!

What? I'm not even sure how to respond to *this*, except to say that were
it not for adults introducing me to various technical pursuits and
encouraging me to get involved, and teaching me, I would not have
accomplished a fraction of the things I have done over the years.

Please remember that this FAQ is a _POSITIVE EXHORTATION_ to you to
exert yourselves to join our fraternity!

If that is your intent, I think you are falling far short of the mark. In
fact, you have reduced my interest in obtaining an amateur license
practically to zero. Was it Groucho Marx that said "I wouldn't be a member
of any club that would have me"? I think I'll take a "pass" on joining
*your* "fraternity". You've even got me to thinking that maybe the
government(s) should stop wasting money on regulating the amateur bands,
open them up to anyone who cares to operate on them, without restrictions,
and abandon them them, much as they have done with the "CB" band in the US.

I'll continue to operate my radios but I see little point in expending the
effort to get a ham ticket just to encounter the same sort of people that
I can run into on 11 meters with no effort at all.

Say, how are you doing with that question of which end of a resistor is
which? When you get that worked out, perhaps you'd care to comment on the
feasibility of using a tuneable Klystron oscillator to drive a magnetron
in a high-power pulsed RF application.