Buzzard Bozo:

....

John

"Cmd Buzz Corey" wrote in message
...
John Smith wrote:
"special interest group"... what next, "Lesbian hams?"

The women are NOT there on the bands--you claim they are "hiding",
well great--they still ain't there in any REAL sense!

So what is this hang-up you have about women, why do you think the
bands should be populated with lots of women hams? As a whole, women
aren't attracted to a technical hobby like ham radio. Ever go out to
the model airplane radio control field? See lots of women there flying
toy airplanes? How many women get their pilots license as compared to
men?
Ever go to a quilting meeting? How many men did you see there?
Ever go to an antique radio swap meet? You will find a lot more men
collecting and fixing old radios than women. Do you collect dolls, tea
sets, china dishes? No? Lots of women do.

When I taught Novice classis some years ago, there were always several
women in the class and they ejoyed learning the code as much as
anyone.

There are things that interest men as a hobby and things that interest
women as a hobby, and most often they are different things.
If all you can see is doom and gloom for ham radio, I suggest you go
back to the 'freeband' where you seem to think radio life is great.

Buzzard Bugger:

....

John

"Cmd Buzz Corey" wrote in message
...
John Smith wrote:
Dee:

cw is like the tying I do here, neither requiring thought, strength
or a particular skill.

So you should have no trouble copying 30-40 wpm then.

Buzzard Bummer:

....

John

"Cmd Buzz Corey" wrote in message
...
John Smith wrote:
Buzzard Bozo:

What thoughtful responses.

John Smith wrote:
"Jim Hampton" wrote in message
...
John,

You could make the same assertion about a driver's license. Memorize
some
rules and take a road test.

Do you support eliminating motor vehicle tests? Perhaps only for
college
educated folks?

Might it make sense to require folks to know where the band edges are,
or
would you think it doesn't matter.

If you travel to the U.K., do you think it might be smart to
understand that
they drive on the *left* side of the road rather than the right? Even
if
you are a pedestrian?

I suspect you'd be upset if someone started transmitting on your
Direct Tv
frequencies and killed your reception. There are rules and folks
wishing
licenses are supposed to demonstrate some knowledge of those rules.
These
rules do not require the calculus, yet even a college grad has to
demonstrate some knowledge of them.

73 from Rochester, NY
Jim AA2QA


"John Smith" wrote in message
...
... the amateur tests are a trivial problem to men with real
educations...

... the cw part makes as much sense as learning to play a "jew's
harp"--a lot of sense if you wish to, none if you don't...

I just support removing code because no new hams are using it in any
meaningful numbers.

"Meaningful numbers"...

That suggests that you ahve some definitive research
numbers...Some scientifically controlled poll.

Please cite the poll...Or was this just your "opinion" based upon
no one wanting to talk to you?

The new state of the art hams are interested in hooking a modem up and
interfacing the radio to the computer...

Great...that's what some are interested in...

Hook up a code key and they loose interest immediately...

No...

You meant YOU lose interest immediately.

Now, a bunch of old guys who are computer illiterate have no choice than
to try to amuse themselves with a damn key...

Yep...there it is.

Steve, K4YZ

John Smith wrote:
N2EY:

You should be ashamed of yourself-

Why?

-you damn well know young cw'ers are
rarer than...

How would you know, John?

You've told us you don't use Morse Code. So how would you
know how many young hams there are using the mode?

You've made fun of the mode and those who use it. A young ham
who uses and likes Morse Code would probably just avoid you,
rather than get involved in a confrontation with you.

Most are no-code licenses!

How do you know?

Here's a clue:

- Age information in the FCC database is incomplete. The birthdate
of some but not all licensees are in there. The times when age
information was collected are such that the ages of young hams may be
underrepresented in the database.

- Not all Technicians are "nocodetest". The FCC has been renewing all
Technician and Technician Plus licenses as Technician for more than 5
years, and in less than 5 more years there will be no more Technician
Pluses at all, because they will all have either expired or been
renewed as Technicians. In that same time period,
Novices who pass Element 2 get Technician licenses, not Technician
Pluses. And any Technician who passes Element 1 is still shown as
Technician on the database.

- You haven't defined "young" - does it mean hams under age 20? 30? 40?
Does it mean hams licensed less than a year? 5 years? 10 years?

Perhaps you have simply concluded that the code test is the
boogeyman responsible for all problems in the amateur radio service,
and that when it's gone, all will be well.


-


wrote in message
ups.com...
John Smith wrote:
I just support removing code because no new hams are using it in any
meaningful numbers.

I've seen plenty of new hams use Morse Code on the air. And plenty who
use other modes. What information do you have to show that "no new
hams
are using it in any meaningful numbers."

The new state of the art hams are interested in hooking a modem up
and
interfacing the radio to the computer...

Some are - some aren't.

Hook up a code key and they loose interest immediately...

Depends on how you present it. And the word is "lose"....

Now, a bunch of old guys who are computer illiterate have no choice
than
to try to amuse themselves with a damn key...

Well, that leaves me out, because I'm neither old nor computer
illiterate.


"Jim Hampton" wrote in message
...
John,

You could make the same assertion about a driver's license.
Memorize
some
rules and take a road test.

Do you support eliminating motor vehicle tests? Perhaps only for
college
educated folks?

Might it make sense to require folks to know where the band edges
are,
or
would you think it doesn't matter.

If you travel to the U.K., do you think it might be smart to
understand that
they drive on the *left* side of the road rather than the right?
Even
if
you are a pedestrian?

I suspect you'd be upset if someone started transmitting on your
Direct Tv
frequencies and killed your reception. There are rules and folks
wishing
licenses are supposed to demonstrate some knowledge of those rules.
These
rules do not require the calculus, yet even a college grad has to
demonstrate some knowledge of them.

73 from Rochester, NY
Jim AA2QA


"John Smith" wrote in message
...
... the amateur tests are a trivial problem to men with real
educations...

... the cw part makes as much sense as learning to play a "jew's
harp"--a lot of sense if you wish to, none if you don't...

Warmest regards,
John

Mike Coslo wrote:
wrote:
Michael Coslo wrote:


. . . The ham was Gene Reynolds W3EAN
who went out of his way to answer my unending stream of questions that
night. I probably drove him nuts but I think he enjoyed it. There was
no turning back after that night, I was gonna become a ham.

I enjoyed the story, Brian.

I've enjoyed the whole trip Michael.

But I gotta break in here. What you have
described is the real reason that people become hams. You were bitten by
the bug, and it sounds like no one was going to stop you from becoming one.

Yessir that's about right certainly in my case.

I too was hooked early in life, although it took a long time to finally
get my ticket. I'm just P****d that I didn't get it years earlier.

Sorry about the previous rant but once in awhile somebody around here
bumps my babble button and there I go again . . You bumped the bloomin'
button again Coslo. Rant Mode = ON

I didn't exactly leap toward the FCC office to take the test either,
far from it. One problem being that I had a number of other interests
too like photography, Boy Scouts, model railroading and GIRLS. They all
absobred my time and what little money I could scrounge via paper
routes and such.

While my folks cheerfully funded Scouting they did not fund any of my
other hot buttons. Probably because they knew I'd drive them broke if
they did. They did encourage my pursuit of ham radio though, I guess
they thought it had educatinal value and it kept me off the streets and
outta trouble. The latter didn't work very well though.

I never had an Elmer, I had no idea how to connect with a ham club when
I was 10-12 so I scrounged books and magazines about ham radio and
tuned the bands with my junk radios. When I finally got to high school
I found a bunch of hams and and "the rest is history". Took me about
five years to go from my encounter with W3EAN to passing the Novice
test and getting on the air with it.

Which was in a much different regime than we have today. The Novice
license was a stick and carrot ticket with the emphasis on the stick.
We had 365 days from the date the license was issued to upgrade to a
13WPM General or get booted out of ham radio. Of the dozens of local
Novices I knew I don't recall of any who failed to upgrade or bitched
about the code tests.

I think I'm very typical of the kids who got into the hobby back then
and there were great heaps of us. The adults who took up ham radio back
then were a different story, they had the money and they had control of
their lives which us kids did not have. Net result today is that us
kids from back then are obviously the grouchy old farts of today and
almost universally have disdain to one degree or another for the
current state of affairs in the giveaway requirements for licensing.

It's not that we're mentally frozen in time at all, that's 100% BS.
It's because we've been there and done it all and we know what works
and what does not given the fact that except for the current licensing
nonsense ham radio hasn't changed nearly as much as many would try to
have us believe. Fuhgeddit, we see right thru it.

Im convinced that events in the future will prove us right. Today we
have a "bloat the numbers at any cost" game which is doomed to backfire
eventually. The big question is how badly it will backfire and how much
damage will have been be done before it happens. The history of this
country over last couple decades is chock full of eamples of backing
away from failed giveaways. It's only a matter of time until ham radio
gets it's turn.

Whew: Got that one out of my system too. Thanks Mike.

The idea of "recruiting" people into the ARS is likely never going to
work - at least as far as snagging people that are thinking about a
hobby, but don't know what to pick up.

I agree right down the line. You can't "recruit" anybody into a hobby
unless some kernel of interest already exists in the mind of the
"target" and even then it's a dicey proposition in most cases. It's
like trying to herd cats, doesn't work. The best we can do is toss out
PR to raise the awareness of ham radio and let the chips fall where
they might. The League is in the right direction in this respect.

If you wanna be a Ham - you *know* it.

Yupper but how one gets there varies hugely to the point where all
670,000 of us have probably taken 300,000 different routes. Compare the
way Dee got into the hobby vs. my route. How different can they get?!


A local oldster was inquiring as to when his license expired, because
he couldn't find his F.C.C. Wallpaper. We help him figure it out. We
need to keep the geezers on the air. I love talking to them. I hope
someone is looking out for me when I'm 91!

They're all treasures we have a responsibilty to protect. Often from
themselves. Heh.

- Mike KB3EIA -

w3rv

Mike Coslo wrote:
Dee Flint wrote:
"John Smith" wrote in message
...

... oh, I love that argument!!! Let me see if I have it correctly,
either:

1) Women are too stupid for the technical fields.

Uh-Huh. You trump all of 'em in that game.

How you managed to twist Mike's words to come up with this interpretation is
amazing. He neither said nor implied anything of the sort.

2) We are no worse than any other technical field about baring women.



He said nothing about barring women from technical fields. Again how you
managed to come up with this inverted interpretation is one of the mysteries
of the world. Women choose not to go into technical fields for their own
reasons. That includes hobby activities like ham radio.

He's another Burke Dee, a male ditz/troll, he isn't worth the effort,
ignore the goofball.


Thank you. I work with a number of female engineers, and they seem to
have no problem working with me. My opinion on the issue is based on
conversations with them.

I smell an oddity here. Dee is an engineer who apparently works in
academia. You also work in academia and know some number of woman
engineers who are also in academia. I've been out here in the
commercial side for decades and per previous have had very few
encounters with woman engineers. Is it possible that the woman
engineers I don't see out here are operating in academia instead??
Would not surprise me a bit if that's the case.

Especially one who bristles at being called a
"female" engineer. She says "Just call me an engineer, if you don't mind!"

Oh crap . . been there, done that . . my middle daughter was an
over-the-edge NOW street warrior in her college days back when the
battle over abortions rights was in full bloom. I can't tell you how
much I enjoyed watching her in action on the six PM news. TWICE.

Of course she had "problems" with this male chauvinist pig. Finally got
down to me suggesting that instead of differentiating by the man/woman
thing we differtiate by using "X-Chromosone people" and "Y-Chromosone
people" instead. Only got me about ten seconds of peace before she
recovered and got all over me again.

sigh

- Mike KB3EIA -

w3rv

Kelly:

Yep. Personal attacks, don't discuss what is not in your personal
self-interests. Call those with differing ideas a troll, deny a problem
exists, etc, etc, etc...

Gee, where have I seen this behavior before...

John

wrote in message
oups.com...

Mike Coslo wrote:
Dee Flint wrote:
"John Smith" wrote in message
...

... oh, I love that argument!!! Let me see if I have it correctly,
either:

1) Women are too stupid for the technical fields.

Uh-Huh. You trump all of 'em in that game.

How you managed to twist Mike's words to come up with this
interpretation is
amazing. He neither said nor implied anything of the sort.

2) We are no worse than any other technical field about baring
women.



He said nothing about barring women from technical fields. Again
how you
managed to come up with this inverted interpretation is one of the
mysteries
of the world. Women choose not to go into technical fields for
their own
reasons. That includes hobby activities like ham radio.

He's another Burke Dee, a male ditz/troll, he isn't worth the effort,
ignore the goofball.


Thank you. I work with a number of female engineers, and they seem to
have no problem working with me. My opinion on the issue is based on
conversations with them.

I smell an oddity here. Dee is an engineer who apparently works in
academia. You also work in academia and know some number of woman
engineers who are also in academia. I've been out here in the
commercial side for decades and per previous have had very few
encounters with woman engineers. Is it possible that the woman
engineers I don't see out here are operating in academia instead??
Would not surprise me a bit if that's the case.

Especially one who bristles at being called a
"female" engineer. She says "Just call me an engineer, if you don't
mind!"

Oh crap . . been there, done that . . my middle daughter was an
over-the-edge NOW street warrior in her college days back when the
battle over abortions rights was in full bloom. I can't tell you how
much I enjoyed watching her in action on the six PM news. TWICE.

Of course she had "problems" with this male chauvinist pig. Finally
got
down to me suggesting that instead of differentiating by the man/woman
thing we differtiate by using "X-Chromosone people" and "Y-Chromosone
people" instead. Only got me about ten seconds of peace before she
recovered and got all over me again.

sigh

- Mike KB3EIA -

w3rv

Kelly:

Yep. I think you are unaware that some of us out here have our licenses,
got our radios fired up, tune the bands--and it is nothing but the same
old, same old...

We do see all the rag chews, boring rants, same operators, same gripes,
same rants, same little groups, same ideas, same conversations as
yesterday--day, after day, after day...

I am sure a lot of 'em are sitting there waiting for us poor ignorant
ops to "get with it" and "come to the realization" of just how vital and
interesting this all is and SHOULD BE to us...

Well I am one which does not and cannot appreciate it... if the fault
lies with me and my interests and views--so be it...

If I am wrong and all these young guys just can't wait to get a license
and startup a QSO so they hear these old guys fart and rant--well, that
is just a short coming of mine--and, those young dynamic guys who are
running the world right now and providing new ideas, designs and methods
are probably on the way here right now to find the old farts.... I'll
just sit here and wait for 'em, I need a change... maybe I can chat
with one or two of 'em--if they can quit their hero worship of you guys
long enough... grin

John

wrote in message
oups.com...

Mike Coslo wrote:
wrote:
Michael Coslo wrote:


. . . The ham was Gene Reynolds W3EAN
who went out of his way to answer my unending stream of questions
that
night. I probably drove him nuts but I think he enjoyed it. There
was
no turning back after that night, I was gonna become a ham.

I enjoyed the story, Brian.

I've enjoyed the whole trip Michael.

But I gotta break in here. What you have
described is the real reason that people become hams. You were bitten
by
the bug, and it sounds like no one was going to stop you from
becoming one.

Yessir that's about right certainly in my case.

I too was hooked early in life, although it took a long time to
finally
get my ticket. I'm just P****d that I didn't get it years earlier.

Sorry about the previous rant but once in awhile somebody around here
bumps my babble button and there I go again . . You bumped the
bloomin'
button again Coslo. Rant Mode = ON

I didn't exactly leap toward the FCC office to take the test either,
far from it. One problem being that I had a number of other interests
too like photography, Boy Scouts, model railroading and GIRLS. They
all
absobred my time and what little money I could scrounge via paper
routes and such.

While my folks cheerfully funded Scouting they did not fund any of my
other hot buttons. Probably because they knew I'd drive them broke if
they did. They did encourage my pursuit of ham radio though, I guess
they thought it had educatinal value and it kept me off the streets
and
outta trouble. The latter didn't work very well though.

I never had an Elmer, I had no idea how to connect with a ham club
when
I was 10-12 so I scrounged books and magazines about ham radio and
tuned the bands with my junk radios. When I finally got to high school
I found a bunch of hams and and "the rest is history". Took me about
five years to go from my encounter with W3EAN to passing the Novice
test and getting on the air with it.

Which was in a much different regime than we have today. The Novice
license was a stick and carrot ticket with the emphasis on the stick.
We had 365 days from the date the license was issued to upgrade to a
13WPM General or get booted out of ham radio. Of the dozens of local
Novices I knew I don't recall of any who failed to upgrade or bitched
about the code tests.

I think I'm very typical of the kids who got into the hobby back then
and there were great heaps of us. The adults who took up ham radio
back
then were a different story, they had the money and they had control
of
their lives which us kids did not have. Net result today is that us
kids from back then are obviously the grouchy old farts of today and
almost universally have disdain to one degree or another for the
current state of affairs in the giveaway requirements for licensing.

It's not that we're mentally frozen in time at all, that's 100% BS.
It's because we've been there and done it all and we know what works
and what does not given the fact that except for the current licensing
nonsense ham radio hasn't changed nearly as much as many would try to
have us believe. Fuhgeddit, we see right thru it.

Im convinced that events in the future will prove us right. Today we
have a "bloat the numbers at any cost" game which is doomed to
backfire
eventually. The big question is how badly it will backfire and how
much
damage will have been be done before it happens. The history of this
country over last couple decades is chock full of eamples of backing
away from failed giveaways. It's only a matter of time until ham radio
gets it's turn.

Whew: Got that one out of my system too. Thanks Mike.

The idea of "recruiting" people into the ARS is likely never going to
work - at least as far as snagging people that are thinking about a
hobby, but don't know what to pick up.

I agree right down the line. You can't "recruit" anybody into a hobby
unless some kernel of interest already exists in the mind of the
"target" and even then it's a dicey proposition in most cases. It's
like trying to herd cats, doesn't work. The best we can do is toss out
PR to raise the awareness of ham radio and let the chips fall where
they might. The League is in the right direction in this respect.

If you wanna be a Ham - you *know* it.

Yupper but how one gets there varies hugely to the point where all
670,000 of us have probably taken 300,000 different routes. Compare
the
way Dee got into the hobby vs. my route. How different can they get?!


A local oldster was inquiring as to when his license expired, because
he couldn't find his F.C.C. Wallpaper. We help him figure it out. We
need to keep the geezers on the air. I love talking to them. I hope
someone is looking out for me when I'm 91!

They're all treasures we have a responsibilty to protect. Often from
themselves. Heh.

- Mike KB3EIA -

w3rv

N2EY:

Oh forget I mentioned anything--lets just chat with the younger guys
under 35--they are more interesting anyway...

Hey, when are they going to get here?

John

wrote in message
oups.com...
John Smith wrote:
N2EY:

You should be ashamed of yourself-

Why?

-you damn well know young cw'ers are
rarer than...

How would you know, John?

You've told us you don't use Morse Code. So how would you
know how many young hams there are using the mode?

You've made fun of the mode and those who use it. A young ham
who uses and likes Morse Code would probably just avoid you,
rather than get involved in a confrontation with you.

Most are no-code licenses!

How do you know?

Here's a clue:

- Age information in the FCC database is incomplete. The birthdate
of some but not all licensees are in there. The times when age
information was collected are such that the ages of young hams may be
underrepresented in the database.

- Not all Technicians are "nocodetest". The FCC has been renewing all
Technician and Technician Plus licenses as Technician for more than 5
years, and in less than 5 more years there will be no more Technician
Pluses at all, because they will all have either expired or been
renewed as Technicians. In that same time period,
Novices who pass Element 2 get Technician licenses, not Technician
Pluses. And any Technician who passes Element 1 is still shown as
Technician on the database.

- You haven't defined "young" - does it mean hams under age 20? 30?
40?
Does it mean hams licensed less than a year? 5 years? 10 years?

Perhaps you have simply concluded that the code test is the
boogeyman responsible for all problems in the amateur radio service,
and that when it's gone, all will be well.


-


wrote in message
ups.com...
John Smith wrote:
I just support removing code because no new hams are using it in
any
meaningful numbers.

I've seen plenty of new hams use Morse Code on the air. And plenty
who
use other modes. What information do you have to show that "no new
hams
are using it in any meaningful numbers."

The new state of the art hams are interested in hooking a modem up
and
interfacing the radio to the computer...

Some are - some aren't.

Hook up a code key and they loose interest immediately...

Depends on how you present it. And the word is "lose"....

Now, a bunch of old guys who are computer illiterate have no
choice
than
to try to amuse themselves with a damn key...

Well, that leaves me out, because I'm neither old nor computer
illiterate.


"Jim Hampton" wrote in message
...
John,

You could make the same assertion about a driver's license.
Memorize
some
rules and take a road test.

Do you support eliminating motor vehicle tests? Perhaps only
for
college
educated folks?

Might it make sense to require folks to know where the band
edges
are,
or
would you think it doesn't matter.

If you travel to the U.K., do you think it might be smart to
understand that
they drive on the *left* side of the road rather than the right?
Even
if
you are a pedestrian?

I suspect you'd be upset if someone started transmitting on your
Direct Tv
frequencies and killed your reception. There are rules and
folks
wishing
licenses are supposed to demonstrate some knowledge of those
rules.
These
rules do not require the calculus, yet even a college grad has
to
demonstrate some knowledge of them.

73 from Rochester, NY
Jim AA2QA


"John Smith" wrote in message
...
... the amateur tests are a trivial problem to men with real
educations...

... the cw part makes as much sense as learning to play a
"jew's
harp"--a lot of sense if you wish to, none if you don't...

Warmest regards,
John