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#25
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Fifth pillar
"Mike Coslo" wrote in message
6... I know many hams who are surrounded with like minded people, other Hams who share similar interests. They have an outlook in which they think everyone is like them, or at least everyone should be. Those who do not share their outlook are inferior, or at best misinformed. What's interesting to me, is the "vintage" of those "elitists". With a few exceptions they are usually not "old timers" or "newbies" but rather those licensed in the 70's through about 1988 or so. These are the ones who posture about "purity of the ham race" and look down their nose at any ham who "isn't like them". They are, by and large, products of the incentive licensing system with it's fragmentation of the hobby into exclusive ghettos, reeking of "status" and "rank" and "I can beep faster than you can beep". When I got into this hobby, you got no special call sign, no special status, no special band segments, the callbook didn't show your class, and nobody could poke around the QRZ.COM website to check your "status". All of us, ALL OF US, exuberantly played in the ether as equals, and nobody gave a rip if you were a Conditional, General, Advanced, or Extra. You were a ham - PERIOD! I think that's what makes us old-timers more accepting of those who "don't act just like us". 73, de Hans, K0HB |