Jeff,
We can all make our own Golden Age of Ham Radio - or whatever else. Success is
a matter of attitude, isn't it?
PS: Don't tell that to our socialist UK government - I'll be sent to the Gulag
as a heretic....
cheers
OILy
--- On Wed, 3/12/08, Jeff Carter <amps@hidden-valley.com> wrote:
From: Jeff Carter <amps@hidden-valley.com>
Subject: Re: [Amps] Linear Amps
To: amps@contesting.com
Date: Wednesday, 3 December, 2008, 3:29 AM
But...I thought that's what a Ham club *was*!
I'm a dues-paying member of about three clubs. One is a University
club where it's mostly semi-interested students and maybe one in
twenty goes on to get a Tech ticket, one is a DX club that I've never
found time to attend, and the last one pretty well fits the mold
you've described. All the rest I'm aware of in this area also fit
your description.
I keep the University club going because as an alum I think it should
be there. Every engineering school should have a ham club. The DX
club was a fantastic email resource for me when I had HF operating
questions, so I stay semi-involved via email. And the last one, I
haven't talked to anybody from the last one in months.
I had unrealistic expectations of that last club. I expected a higher
level of technical ability/knowledge than I encountered. The last
meeting I attended, there was a huge argument about the 2m machine and
the trustee started screaming at everybody. There's an unusual amount
of deference shown to the repeater trustee for some reason, even
though from listening to him it was pretty obvious he was only
semi-skilled.
They'd get into arguments about electronics that could have been
solved by a first-year engineering student, and I never got the
feeling they cared about the true answers, they seemed to just want to
argue.
I've been my own Elmer, mostly from Day One. It's not that people
didn't always want to help, it's more that by the time I came along
all the really technical people in my area had either died or moved on
to other things. Fortunately, much of what was documented is still
available online if you dig for it. I've read a lot of articles about
the necessities of clubs, and how much of a joy it is to be able to
share what you've accomplished with other hams, but that hasn't been
my experience.
My impression is that there was a Golden Age of Amateur Radio, and I
missed it. I will always enjoy working on amps and building antennas
and all the things we do, but I could care less about actually
operating any of this stuff. I do it, sometimes, but it's not what
Amateur Radio is about for me. And since the clubs in my area mostly
contain appliance operators (not that there's anything wrong with
that), there's no real draw in club membership for me.
Since this is the Amps list, I'd imagine that there's a high number of
highly technical folks here who can at least understand what I'm
saying.
Jeff/KD4RBG
---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 21:43:05 -0500
>From: "kenw2dtc" <kenw2dtc@comcast.net>
>Subject: Re: [Amps] Linear Amps
>To: " KZ4USA"
<videorov@verizon.net>,<amps@contesting.com>
>
>"The clubs here in Florida don't do much like that. They just sit
around and
> bitch about the the dues and roberts rules of order!!!!!"
>
>Let me guess: the club is formed around a 2 meter repeater and on Field
>Day, one guy brings and operates HF while the rest sit around, drink beer
>and eat hot dogs.
>
>73,
>Ken W2DTC
>
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