Michael J. Coslo wrote:

If I wanted to have an exclusive club, one in which I and others who I
thought had made the grade, and that I wanted to be around, without
annoying new people, I would design it to have a minimum requirement
well beyond what the base requirement was - keeping in mind that the
original test was gone. Then I would have something like prospective
members have to be nominated by people who are already club members. I
would do this in order to be sure that only the right people got in.

Is this the case here? Not necessarily, but who knows.

It looks to me like your words exactly describe the membership
requirements for the new organization. I'm assuming that the mention of
competency testing is really only for show.

And fine, if that's what these folks want, then they have as much right
to organize as any other group. It's not something that turns my crank,
but that just means that I won't join.

Well, my experience has been a little different. On the air, it hasn't
been too bad, but in person, I've been told that despite what I do for
amateur radio, I am a second class Ham because I'm not a regular user
of CW. I've been told that my physical issues notwithstanding, I can
never be a first class Ham, because it is like an athlete. Not
everyone can be a professional football player, because not everyone
has the physical attributes. My hearing precludes me being a real Ham.

I'm sorry to hear that. There are a lot of hams out there, and any time
you get a large group of humans together, you're going to find a certain
number of insensitive idiots. Frankly I think there are more hams at
both ends of the normal curve than in the general population. That
means that there are more idiots, but there are more Really Good People.

You might be interested that my experience has been exactly the opposite
here in the local ham group. There is exactly one other cw operator in
the club, and he only shows up at the Field Day operation. The club
members ridicule cw. They think it is completely stupid and cannot
understand why anyone would use it. Their term for cw ops is "no talkers".

And believe it or not, I was once called insane because I gave the
same number of QSO points to RTTY and PSK31 QSO's for scoring a
contest. That's the exact wording. Some of these folks wanted the
double point value to be exclusively for CW Ops, and were outraged
that I offered it to any other modes. That was personally
disappointing to say the least, because I've always stood up for the
mode.

Designing the rules for a contest is one of those classic lose/lose
situations. Not that there's any excuse for someone using the term
"insane", but if you had done it the other way and kept the bonus
exclusively for cw then it would have been the RTTY and PSK31 ops who
were upset. You can't please all of the people . . .

Now as far as that goes, no problem. I'm opinionated and realize that
the nail that sticks up is the one that gets the hammer. For me, it's
just data points. I appreciate the mode, and will continue to support
and promote it, because of it's historical, practical, and technical
value. But I've learned to not expect any appreciation for that.
Anyhow, it's been a good thread.

Agreed completely.