WA9ALS (same age as me, came from same college, too :-) said:
> How many of you know anyone under say, age 25, that's doing or at least
> has
> dabled in, RTTY?
When ham radio was a technical hobby, at least the
nerdy among us were attracted to it. It was also a
time when companies like Heathkit flourished.
I know of some of the younger crowd dabbling with
new digital modes (not just operating it, but actually
creating new modulation modes, channel simulators
and so on). (Funny that some of them also have longer
callsigns. :-)
Steam RTTY just does not provide that kind of challenge
to them. There is limited innovations to be made. It is now
95% perspiration and 5% inspiration.
Here we are, using kilowatts and $3000 TU's trying to make
contacts, and they do it with Elekrafts and a Sound Card, with
a few lines of clever code in software. If I hadn't become
addicted to FSK earlier, I probably would be hanging
around 14070, too.
Actually... if I were really younger, I would probably be playing
with TCP/IP rather than HF :-).
The keyboard mode will always be around. But I am not sure
we will always be transmitting using two spectral peaks into
the indefinite future. Just MHO.
73
Chen, AA6TY
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