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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