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#21
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Before and After Cessation of Code Testing
"Dee Flint" wrote in
: Changes in requirements don't have any effect when the potential recruits have no idea that the hobby even exists. I bumped into this post after a couple of hours on Skype with a ham buddy of mine in New Zealand. I was 5-9 for the whole QSO and I don't have an antenna. Who do we call "potential recruits" under these conditions? What's the point, any more? (Please don't point me to that old BS about emergency comms. I went right through the eye of Hurricane Hugo in Charleston in 1989, talking on Cellular One's AMPS bagphone to worried friends in Ohio as I stood in the street, in the eye, looking up at the stars in a completely destroyed neighborhood. The system is even better, now, unless, of course, the Illuminati use thermite to take out the building the cellular switch is located in like 9/11 in NYC. Larry -- .. |
#22
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Before and After Cessation of Code Testing
"AF6AY" wrote in
oups.com: In general I agree with you Mike. I've had some trouble getting to the website where Hans got his numbers; www.ncvec.org doesn't have any page with that information. Other than that, amateur radio licensee numbers MUST remain "up" in order to indicate to the government there is a "presence" of citizens in a sizeable number that deserves attention. There are many different radio services regulated by the FCC and amateur radio is a minority among those. Agreed. I'm glad someone got that into this conversation. That we have these allocations at all is a minor miracle. Numerical preservation is one of the ways that we will keep them, IMO. Why? Some have speculated that the majority of that drop-off was a change in communication habits, ie. Hams who got their licenses for purposes of "calling home" to check in, or get a grocery list, or the like. Some call that flavor of Ham a "honeydo" Ham. These people are served by Cell phones now. Based on my experience in southern California, I took the "honey-do" license reason as pure speculation on others' part. What I have seen here in the last decade is: (1). A rapid growth of cellular in its present compact HT form; (2). a growth of "technician" type VHF and UHF activity which had already begun well back before the year 2000 Restructuring. Yes, most of the reasons given are spectulation, and when that happens we tend to inject our own personal views into that speculation. I don't really know the cause of the drop-off, am just making a (hopefully) intelligent guess. 8^) Caveat: I live in a large urban population area, not unlike the NYC-LI, Chicago, San Francisco ('Bay Area'), Seattle, etc. areas. VHF-UHF at LOS paths works well in such areas. But, there is another part of VHF-UHF radio activity that doesn't quite have the parallel of HF DX hunting, in-person get- togethers, spontaneous or planned. From th etimes that I was out there, that would be VHF nirvana, tall mountains and fairly flat valleys. I suspect the canyons might be a little challenging tho'. Back here in PA we have nice mountains, but so many foothills and corduroy valleys that make repeater work a little more challenging. But even that can be overcome with effort and fairly deep pockets. We have a very good local repeater system, with several polling stations on the local mountains that vote on which signal gets to the main repeater. A 300 mw HT cam be used over almost the entire county. There's more activity of radio amateurs above 30 MHz than what the "HF" amateurs think, especially in larger urban areas. We're certainly busy on VHF here. State College is considered the "smallest metropolitan area in the country...8^) Those who operate above 30 MHz should never be thought of or even considered as "second-class" amateurs of the "shack on a belt" category. Absolutely. I've often thought that there was a natural divide between HF and VHF+. Disregarding 6 meters, which is kind of a mishmash, it can almost be two different hobbies. I gravitate toward HF myself, but there is cool stuff happening at VHF and above. And so what if a Hams hobby is confined to "the repeater" anyhow? I have personally seen a surge of new Hams in our area. We've been having a 2 percent growth in our area since *before* the testing change, and assuming that tonights testing is successful, 2 new generals and a Technician will be added to the ranks this evening. Those new guys don't know a thing about what the Honeydo hams were doing ten years ago, and don't particularly care either. They have become interested in Ham radio, and we've encouraged them every step of the way. We've been selling the sizzle. There's a problem with using anecdotal evidence: It is too limited to apply to the national scene. Changes in licensing patterns FOR the national area can only be derived from national licensing information. I can say my 91352 ZIP area has 78 hams with over 2/3 of those at Tech or Tech-Plus category but it means little for a national amateur radio condition. Yes, at my test session on 25 Feb 07 over half were there to get or to upgrade from Technician licenses. Doesn't mean much to looking at the overall national scene. Our situation is truly a "single data point". My thoughts on that are that we are working hard to prove that with an inclusive atmosphere (critical) and selling that sizzle, we seem to be making it work. There are so many facets to Ham radio - Experimentation, Olde tyme radio, voice, digital, simple OOK Morse comms. Public service, contesting, DX'ing, homebrewing, SWD radio, Offroading comms, and on and on. the ARS should almost be selling itself. And the serendipitious finds it's way into the picture too. I never would have thought that I would get into hollow state technology, as I am heavily into the latest technology too. Go figure! My main point is that with good representatives, Ham radio shouldn't be a hard sell. BTW, as to Dee Flint's other comment in this thread, the "pros" in electronics HAVE been informed of the code test elimination since December, 2006. EDN and Electronic Design, both industry trades of wide distribution, and SPECTRUM, the membership magazine of the IEEE had news of that prior to 23 Feb 07. There were brief mentions of it in various Pentron industry trade news, even the occasional newspaper "filler" story around the country. It wasn't known just to already-licensed radio amateurs but to a larger segment of the electronics-oriented public. Knowledge that Ham radio "exists" is nice, I suppose. Even better would be that people understand that they might want to get involved. Just one example might be APRS. Although I find it a little creepy, helicoptering parents might find it interesting to know where their offspring are. I'm pretty convinced that a PSK31 enabled 2 meter "texter" radio would be popular among high schoolers and even older hams. Something like that should have been available some years ago. You could even combine it all into one unit. This isn't rocket science, just pipe dreaming something that might be an interesting element of the hobby. Who says that we all have to be doing the same thing? - 73 de Mike KB3EIA - |
#23
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Before and After Cessation of Code Testing
"Dee Flint" wrote in
: What percentage of the general populace read EDN, Electronic Design, and Spectrum? We can't rely on just one group of people (pros in electronics) to provide stability or even growth. Just because a person is an electronics pro doesn't necessarily mean that amateur radio will tickle their fancy. What percentage of the newspapers carried those fillers? Not many. Of those, what percentage of people actually read the fillers tucked in here and there in the newspaper? We need to get the word out among the general populace not just specialty groups. Yes, pretty much! We also need to have our hobby in some position to attract the general populous also. Some of the same type items that I was writing about with Len. I take my own situation as an example. I got into Ham radio as a person who was interested in possible communications support and control in matters relating to Amateur Astronomy. From there, it blossomed into HF and to my surprise, some of the old (read hollow state) radios as well as digital modes. While we can say "You can communnicate with the world on HF, that point might be lost on people who can pick up a cell phone and call most anywhere in the world. It might take a little while for the fact that we can do that without any infrastructure to sink in. Once that happens, we got 'em hook line and sinker. The important thing is that we have to find something relevant to the newbie to start with. - 73 de Mike KB3EIA - |
#24
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Before and After Cessation of Code Testing
Paul W. Schleck " wrote in
: I believe that there is a significant difference between "never heard" of ham radio versus just aren't aware of aspects of ham radio that may be appealing to them personally. The latter is far more prevalent, and worrisome, in my opinion. What is the lay perception of ham radio? Probably the most positive is that of of hard-core techies with antennas all over their houses and cars (as hard-core techies are the force behind popular, sometimes useful, things like the space program, cellular telephones, digital music, HDTV, the Internet, etc.). Being admired as techie heroes doesn't necessarily mean that a lot of people want to become such techie heroes themselves, however. The most negative image would be that of reclusive individuals engaging in an obscure, possibly obsolete, pastime with no apparent redeeming social value beyond preserving history and reminiscing about the past. This rings true for me, Paul. I've been trying to talk my XYL into getting a license for a bit now. Unfortunately she is convinced that my approach to the hobby is de rigeur. She sees my pile of test equipment in the garage, and all the homebrewing that I do, and has assumed that that is how Hams have to be. I'm still working on convincing her that you don't have to be an ubergeek to be a Ham. It sure would be nice to have someone to talk to in the shack while I'm in the backyard or on the roof tuning the antennas.... 8^) - 73 de Mike KB3EIA - |
#25
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Before and After Cessation of Code Testing
Larry wrote:
I bumped into this post after a couple of hours on Skype with a ham buddy of mine in New Zealand. I was 5-9 for the whole QSO and I don't have an antenna. Who do we call "potential recruits" under these conditions? What's the point, any more? (Please don't point me to that old BS about emergency comms. I went right through the eye of Hurricane Hugo in Charleston in 1989, talking on Cellular One's AMPS bagphone to worried friends in Ohio as I stood in the street, in the eye, looking up at the stars in a completely destroyed neighborhood. If I want to talk to a buddy in New Zealand, I'll pick up the telephone. That does, indeed, provide me with pleasure and the satisfaction of talking with a buddy in New Zealand. If I want to enjoy a different kind of satisfaction, I'll walk into my ham shack and crank up the rig. There, I might also experience the satisfaction of chewing the rag with a buddy, or I might call CQ just to see who responds, or I might see if I can snag that rare DX station, or check into a traffic net, or help with the local Skywarn operations, or perform any number of other tasks. From those I receive satisfaction. You're right about the fact that if you view ham radio as the ability to have a spoken conversation with another individual, there are better ways to do that. Frankly, that's not the specific aspect of ham radio that interests me; there's not even a microphone hooked up to my HF rig. Another example: If I want to travel from Chicago to Kenosha, I'll jump in my car or perhaps take the train. If I want the *trip* to be the point, perhaps I'll use a motorboat. If I want to have a different kind of experience and hone a skill that not everyone has, I'll join some friends and race sailboats to Kenosha, enjoying the mental challenge of figuring out what is the best course, rigging, and strategy based on current wind and weather conditions. The fact that the most efficient method of travelling from Chicago to Kenosha is not by sailboat does not diminish the fun of sailing as a hobby. The system is even better, now, unless, of course, the Illuminati use thermite to take out the building the cellular switch is located in like 9/11 in NYC. You are correct that communications infrastructure grows better and more resilient as more and more money is poured into it. You are wrong that it always survives a disaster. I'm thrilled that you were able to wander through a hurricane chatting on your cellphone. I can counter that story with the opposite one from Katrina, where communications infrastructure disappeared from large areas for long time periods. I can also tell you that FEMA, the Red Cross, and other organizations are spending large sums of money to prepare mobile equipment to move into place to take care of those interruptions that you don't acknowledge. Ham radio does still have a place in those sorts of events, even if it's not the same role that it might have had a decade ago. But that's not really the point. The point is that ham radio is a multi-faceted hobby, with many different interest groups. That doesn't mean that it's for everyone, but there's a lot more than chatting with a buddy or supporting emergency communications. 73, Steve KB9X |
#26
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Before and After Cessation of Code Testing
Paul W. Schleck wrote:
Over the years, I have observed the following common reactions by the lay public to ham radio publicity and recruitment: - Oh, isn't that like CB? I suspect that is the majority opinion among the lay public. It's hard to explain the difference between a CB operator and an amateur radio operator using a modified CB rig on 10m with two inches chopped off the CB antenna. :-) -- 73, Cecil, w5dxp.com |
#27
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Before and After Cessation of Code Testing
Larry wrote in
: "Dee Flint" wrote in : Changes in requirements don't have any effect when the potential recruits have no idea that the hobby even exists. I bumped into this post after a couple of hours on Skype with a ham buddy of mine in New Zealand. I was 5-9 for the whole QSO and I don't have an antenna. Who do we call "potential recruits" under these conditions? What's the point, any more? (Please don't point me to that old BS about emergency comms. Respectfully, your perspective on Amateur Radio is a bit narrow. It isn't just about talking with other people. If all a person wanted to do was talk, they are much better off picking up the phone. And they were much better off a long time and on many other comm modes before Skype came around. I went right through the eye of Hurricane Hugo in Charleston in 1989, talking on Cellular One's AMPS bagphone to worried friends in Ohio as I stood in the street, in the eye, looking up at the stars in a completely destroyed neighborhood. 1 data point. We had a snowstorm that took down most of the power lines in our area a few years back. Everyone tried to call their worried friends and took the cellular network down almost immediately. If cell phones were reliable, they wouldn't spend all that money on emergency comm systems. If they stay up, that is great. Use 'em if you got 'em. (however even if there is power, during emergencies they tend to get overloaded) - 73 de Mike KB3EIA - |
#28
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Before and After Cessation of Code Testing
"Dee Flint" wrote on Tue, 10 Apr 2007
22:31:17 EDT "AF6AY" wrote in message BTW, as to Dee Flint's other comment in this thread, the "pros" in electronics HAVE been informed of the code test elimination since December, 2006. EDN and Electronic Design, both industry trades of wide distribution, and SPECTRUM, the membership magazine of the IEEE had news of that prior to 23 Feb 07. There What percentage of the general populace read EDN, Electronic Design, and Spectrum? We can't rely on just one group of people (pros in electronics) to provide stability or even growth. The worldwide membership of the IEEE exceeds the number of licensed active US radio amateurs. The electronics industry employs millions in the USA alone. It is BIG. Just because a person is an electronics pro doesn't necessarily mean that amateur radio will tickle their fancy. That's true and observable in any corporate electronics engineering environment. But, don't forget that the majority of those IN the electronics engineering part of the industry got INTO it for the fascination of the technology. It doesn't take a great deal of persuasion to get them interested in the hobby aspects of radio beyond scanners, beyond SWL, beyond WiFi, beyond WLANs. Indeed, some of them get into robotics, a fun hobby for many...or they get into audio. My MD General Practitioner is fascinated by speakers and various ways to couple them for the highest-fi of sound, but not INTO circuitry itself...despite being able to USE a number of very high-tech electronic devices in his medical practice. Those in wholesale and retail merchandising of electronics pay attention to many phases of the electronics market, trying to anticipate demand. They will also delete items that do not sell well or where the local interest groups are too small for them to make a profit in their business. My wife and I were out today looking for a particular item of consumer electronics. One place, a relatively new Best Buy store (built four years ago), was huge. A mile and a half away is a Fry's Electronics, even bigger. In observing the entire electronics retail industry for the last half century, I've never seen any amateur radio outlet that approaches their size. What percentage of the newspapers carried those fillers? Not many. Perhaps. I can only state that the Los Angeles TIMES has a circulation of 1.4 million each day. Since more than one person will read one issue, the number of readers here may exceed 3 million. Of those, what percentage of people actually read the fillers tucked in here and there in the newspaper? I have no idea, not being in the journalism field. You might try asking your own newspaper about that. We need to get the word out among the general populace not just specialty groups. I will suggest you observe the Public Relations techniques of the entertainment industry. They manage to get enormous PR about entertainers, TV series, motion pictures, etc. Or any advertising agency willing to talk about it (not that easy). They KNOW about such things. The first thing amateur radio MUST do is to LOSE the old, trite cliche's of a half century ago used to "promote" amateur radio. Almost all of that just doesn't work in this first decade of the new millennium. We have one in three Americans with a cell phone. CB users outnumber licensed radio amateurs by anywhere from 4:1 to 7:1, certainly so and larger on the nation's highways. We get worldwide video feed from anywhere on the globe for TV news, the only thing stopping some on late-breaking news is the crowding of communications satellite transponders. We all were able to see "videophone" pictures from inside Iraq during the first Gulf War (a decade and a half ago). We can have VoIP anywhere that the Internet is, which is sizeable on every continent. We have wireless auto "keyless entry" locks by the millions in use every day. We have Wireless LANs available in homes, not just businesses. We have wireless door bells and the cell phone "Bluetooth" short-range couplers to a teeny cell phone typified by the strange growth some ardent users have in one ear. :-) The general public - to me - doesn't seem to know exactly what "shortwave" is, even less informed on what "HF" is. They know about CB because such has been featured as an integral part of one popular TV series ("Dukes of Hazard"), used in several major motion pictures ("Convoy" and "Smokey and the Bandit" among the bigger grossers). The best that can be said for showing amateur radio is the film "Frequency," a fantasy tale of some kind of time travel. Note, "Contact" starring Jodie Foster, was much more science-fiction about first meeting with aliens even though it had brief showing of amateur radio as part of the story. The general public can recognize cell site antennas and towers, can understand that police and fire and other public safety agencies USE radio as part of their work. They KNOW they can choose a satellite relay service for their home TV instead of going to cable; the little dishes are unmistakable. They just don't have an appreciation for a "QRP ham rig that can talk anywhere in the world," especially when that ham rig requires just the right kind of ionospheric conditions to be able to do that. In general, the public seems unaware of shortwave broadcasts since they have plenty of standard AM and FM broadcasting available in every US urban center. The general public is much more aware of the skylines of many urban neighborhoods interrupted by towers with beam antennas, ungainly wire antennas strung as best a residence plot allows. In general they think them ugly and unsuitable for a residential neighborhood. In general they aren't going to be sold on some tall tale of "those are 'necessary' for homeland defense!" Besides the occasional RFI problem, the general public has a negative opinion of amateur radio in their neighborhood...it is their HOME territory, not a radio center. Trying to talk up amateur radio to the general public requires being AWARE of what the general public knows, NOT what amateurs or membership organizations want. It isn't publicity to promote ham radio to the general public if all that is done is amateurs high-fiving one another on a "job well done." It isn't "well done" to the public if they reamin insular. Despite being an ARRL member, I cannot (in truth) say that the ARRL has gotten out to the public. If anything, NASA has done that much more on requesting astronauts to get Technician class licenses to talk to various public school groups from space. That's a NASA PR ploy to keep the public aware of NASA activities... and future NASA budgeting to keep the space biz going. Walter Cronkhite as a narrator of an amateur radio video about amateur radio is fine. But, it can't just be shown to amateur radio clubs. It has to get OUT to the public. At least sell the idea of showing the video as a public service, something the stations are required to do. So what if the showing is in the wee small hours of the morning? SOME showing is better than NONE. 73, Len AF6AY |
#29
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Before and After Cessation of Code Testing
Mike Coslo wrote on Wed, 11 Apr 2007
04:22:00 EDT "AF6AY" wrote in Other than that, amateur radio licensee numbers MUST remain "up" in order to indicate to the government there is a "presence" of citizens in a sizeable number that deserves attention. There are many different radio services regulated by the FCC and amateur radio is a minority among those. Agreed. I'm glad someone got that into this conversation. That we have these allocations at all is a minor miracle. Numerical preservation is one of the ways that we will keep them, IMO. Yes, and proper politicking, too. Example: The model radio- control channels on 72, 74 MHz. Model hobby organizations and the model hobby industry fought for that and got them. No way that model airplanes, boats, cars are "advancing the state of the art" of vehicles nor is it even a scientific activity. It is FUN to do. The Academy of Model Aeronautics in Ohio has a quarter million members and that is only part of total involved in model hobbies. It CAN be done without all the high-sounding rhetoric. It is a PEOPLE-involved activity and the numbers do make a difference. Caveat: I live in a large urban population area, not unlike the NYC-LI, Chicago, San Francisco ('Bay Area'), Seattle, etc. areas. VHF-UHF at LOS paths works well in such areas. But, there is another part of VHF-UHF radio activity that doesn't quite have the parallel of HF DX hunting, in-person get- togethers, spontaneous or planned. From th etimes that I was out there, that would be VHF nirvana, tall mountains and fairly flat valleys. I suspect the canyons might be a little challenging tho'. Back here in PA we have nice mountains, but so many foothills and corduroy valleys that make repeater work a little more challenging. But even that can be overcome with effort and fairly deep pockets. We have a very good local repeater system, with several polling stations on the local mountains that vote on which signal gets to the main repeater. A 300 mw HT cam be used over almost the entire county. I don't know when you were in southern California area, but the Condor Net began about 1977...back before microprocessors were available to the hobbyist. On the "220" band, it uses subaudible signalling to access any repeater path from just north of the Bay Area (San Francisco) down south to L.A. and San Diego, over to Arizona and one link to Nevada. All privately funded, all public access, over 600 miles of all types of terrain, flat to mountains. Those who operate above 30 MHz should never be thought of or even considered as "second-class" amateurs of the "shack on a belt" category. Absolutely. I've often thought that there was a natural divide between HF and VHF+. Disregarding 6 meters, which is kind of a mishmash, it can almost be two different hobbies. I gravitate toward HF myself, but there is cool stuff happening at VHF and above. And so what if a Hams hobby is confined to "the repeater" anyhow? There's an unfortunate stereotypical attitude, enforced by years of publicity since before WW2 that ONLY HF is "important" since that is where DX happens. HF is easier to work with than VHF because "lumped" constants are used to make identification and understanding easier. By the UHF region it begins to be "distributed" constants, much harder for the average ham to understand. But, VHF and above can do some tricks that are physically impossible for the average ham home owner...even if "DX" is a rarity. Our situation is truly a "single data point". My thoughts on that are that we are working hard to prove that with an inclusive atmosphere (critical) and selling that sizzle, we seem to be making it work. Whatever works on the local scenes is good. If it works, it works. My main point is that with good representatives, Ham radio shouldn't be a hard sell. That is the HARD part! The OLD paradigms, the phrases, the "new" phrases such as "vital to homeland defense" just don't work with the general public. It hasn't worked enough so far. As I remarked to Dee, NASA is doing more for ham radio PR than the ARRL. Those astronauts who got Tech licenses didn't do so "for the good of amateur radio." They got them because it was a job requirement. NASA is doing its own PR since it is publicly funded through the taxpayer. Knowledge that Ham radio "exists" is nice, I suppose. Even better would be that people understand that they might want to get involved. Selling "sizzle" is a first step. Adding the "bacon" aroma helps a lot. But the sizzle and aroma can NOT remain locked inside ham club houses. That is NOT proper PR, despite it making hams in those club houses feeling all good and emotional. This isn't rocket science, just pipe dreaming something that might be an interesting element of the hobby. Who says that we all have to be doing the same thing? Ahem...several of the more vocal are dead set on continuing all the old paradigms, confident that such is the "best" way. It isn't. The number of NEW licensees arriving on the ham scene is NOT keeping up with those expirations. It's been in the statistics for at least three years now and is NOT just a minor blip in the numbers. 73, Len AF6AY |
#30
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Before and After Cessation of Code Testing
AF6AY wrote:
Trying to talk up amateur radio to the general public requires being AWARE of what the general public knows, NOT what amateurs or membership organizations want. It isn't publicity to promote ham radio to the general public if all that is done is amateurs high-fiving one another on a "job well done." It isn't "well done" to the public if they reamin insular. Despite being an ARRL member, I cannot (in truth) say that the ARRL has gotten out to the public. If anything, NASA has done that much more on requesting astronauts to get Technician class licenses to talk to various public school groups from space. That's a NASA PR ploy to keep the public aware of NASA activities... and future NASA budgeting to keep the space biz going. Yup, NASA has gotten a lot more mileage out of the project than the ARS has. Walter Cronkhite as a narrator of an amateur radio video about amateur radio is fine. But, it can't just be shown to amateur radio clubs. It has to get OUT to the public. At least sell the idea of showing the video as a public service, something the stations are required to do. So what if the showing is in the wee small hours of the morning? SOME showing is better than NONE. Another suggestion. most Cable systems have public service channels. Amateur radio advocates should be able to tap into that. There is one caveat, and I go into this with a bit of sensitivity here. In my non-Ham life, I often put together productions that serve as advertisements. The old adage of putting your best foot forward is mandatory if you are going to get a message across. We often do not do that. You don't need - or even want - the smartest Ham on the block. What you need is an adept communicator. This erudite communicator needs to be "prettied up" for the prospective audience. Wearing a "Hooters" T-shirt ain't gonna cut it. I would probably wear a suit and tie (note not a white shirt and skinny black tie). Maybe lose the jacket after a few minutes. In similar form, we're trying to attract teenagers, we probably don't want a kid with a tattoo on his forehead and a safety pin in his lip. Why don't we want that local uberHam? In many (most?) cases they are not very good communicators.(note the difference between communicating and communicator) They are too close to the subject. If we're trying to demonstrate HF comms for the unfamiliar, they don't need a lecture on the third intercept point of whatever transceiver. Sometimes they want to show how smart they are more than try to attract people.. Wanna scare a prospective Ham away? Make them feel like they can do anything if they aren't an engineer. Focus the message, use a good communicator, and look approachable. - 73 de Mike KB3EIA - |
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