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Re: [TowerTalk] dumbing down

To: SavageBR@aol.com, K7LXC@aol.com, towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] dumbing down
From: Jim Lux <jimlux@earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 15:44:16 -0700
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
At 02:44 PM 7/21/2005, SavageBR@aol.com wrote:
>
>In a message dated 7/21/2005 13:10:14 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
>K7LXC@aol.com writes:
>
>BTW  we're not dumbing down TowerTalk.
>
>
>
>Indirectly Tower Talk and any other technical reflector is being dumbed
>down. Or, the need is being eliminated. As the technically competent,
>experienced, capable amateur dies off, so will the real hobby of 
>amateur  radio.
>
>Bruce


I hardly think the number of technically competent, experienced and capable 
amateurs is decreasing.  Perhaps the nature of the expertise is changing, 
but that's not all that unusual.  Back in 1970, you would have had a lot 
more people who were expert at making stable LC VFOs without too many 
microphonics and Class C PAs with AM modulators, something that is probably 
pretty rare today.  On the other hand, back in 1970, relatively few hams 
did anything with digital logic or used UHF on a regular basis, something 
that's quite common today.  Go back even farther, and you'll probably find 
people who excelled at finding just the right spot for the cat whisker on 
the Galena crystal.  Times change, needs change, the amateur radio service 
evolves.

To relate it more to antennas.. I think that amateurs are, in general, much 
more sophisticated when it comes to antennas these days.  Compare the 
antenna projects in ARRL handbooks over the years.  Some are perennial 
evergreens, but modern directive antennas are far better than what was 
"state of the art" in 1960 or 1970.

To a certain extent, by emailing on this list, you're speaking to a fairly 
selective subset of amateurs.  First of all, they're ones who are 
comfortable on the internet and using email (Don't see much towertalk type 
messages being passed by NTS, do you?).  The internet interaction has both 
good and bad points. Good, because you can bounce ideas off of people 
literally all over the world in a very short time.  Bad, because you get 
"better" response on an email list than you would by shlepping on down to 
the monthly local club meeting, so people get frustrated with local 
interactions.

I know well about this, because I am the president of a club, and the 
number of interactions I get by emailing the membership is probably 3 times 
that I get in the monthly meetings. And gosh, for this club, it's at work, 
with the meeting at lunch time, so the members don't even have to drive 
anywhere.  However, life is full of other commitments (seems that all the 
people calling work related meetings have discovered that the autoschedule 
feature of our calendaring application can find a hole at noon or 1230)

The problem is that so much of ham radio, particularly development of 
operating skill and courtesy, depends on in person interaction.  That 
friendly person sitting next to you  as you listen to the crackle and hiss 
and cacophony of 20m on a contest weekend telling you, go ahead, call 
CQ.  Don't worry if you call for 10 minutes and nobody comes 
back.  Eventually they will, or, we'll try something different.  It's like 
fishing.  You need patience.

That person standing in your back yard as you throw a rope over a tree, 
saying, don't worry if it's not perfect, we'll be on the air in 10 minutes, 
and the antenna tuner will fix it if the length's a bit off.  That sort of 
interaction cannot be achieved on the internet, no matter how interactive 
the internet experience is.  Stage fright isn't only experienced by actors, 
and as a ham embarking on a new mode or style of operation, your behavior 
is literally exposed to the whole big wide world.  Inevitably, you step on 
some toes or annoy someone and you get blasted.  You need that person 
beside you telling you, "Yep, you did screw up, but the other guy is a jerk 
for berating you for it."

In the old days (Before Internet), the local club, local hams, and the 
library were really your only source of technical information.  I recently 
received an email from someone who recalled having dragged their radio in 
their (little red) wagon to my grandfather (whose call I now have) for 
diagnosis.  It turns out that my father was the one who had given him a 
ride down to the FCC office on Spring Street to take the test. Even if you 
didn't know anybody in the local club or a local ham, your parents might 
suggest going and knocking on the door of that guy in the next block with 
that big antenna sticking up in their back yard.

Would this occur today?  No, the kid would have zapped onto the internet, 
googled for possible answers, possibly posted a question on a email list 
like this or a forum, and then, hopefully, succeeded.  If it was fixable 
with software, someone might even shoot him the patch in an email. (Seems 
like there's a new release of the software for the SDR-1000 digital radio 
about every 6 hours these days, as people find problems or think of new 
features, and other people fix them).

So, the internet provides a fine vehicle for disseminating technical 
information, and for remote diagnosis, but doesn't do a whole lot for 
developing good operating practice.   Getting on the air helps a bit, but 
since you can't hear yourself, it's a pretty poor way to develop good 
style, and during a contest isn't the best time for "user education". I 
suspect that these days, Field Day is probably the only time when many 
people actually get a chance to hear lots of people operating, both in 
person, and over the air, and can actually get a feel for what's "just 
plain rude" and what's merely a difference in style.

In summary, we're certainly not dumbing down; technically, we're just as 
smart as we've always been, if not more so, and over a much richer and 
diverse set of areas.  What's changing  is the behavior on the air (and on 
lists like this). Here I am, acting very codger-like at the ripe old age of 
45, fully recognizing that I'm sure people in 1955 were griping about those 
funny sounding idiots using sideband, and how pretty soon nobody would know 
how to adjust a modulator any more.

Time to go out and figure out how to hide my antennas and coax from the 
HOA......

73 de W6RMK

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