[RFI] VDSL (very-high-bit-rate digital subscriber line)

Michael Coslo mjc5 at psu.edu
Mon May 5 13:49:14 EDT 2014


I’ll make one comment before filtering this thread out. Because it has no place in an RFI reflector.

We get and see the Amateur radio we want. I’m teaching new guys and gals about digital modes, many of these people are young hams. I’m a VE, and we produce many more Hams every year in my area, and a whole  lot of them are pretty active. And no they aren’t all Technicians. I’ve taught classes on soldering,  homebrewing, antenna construction, and there are probably about 50 hams in our area running homebrew antennas of my design that they built. Good people, Good Hams, and they are doing and growing the hobby.

I’m working to make Amateur Radio better. Are you?

	- 73 Mike N3LI -


On May 5, 2014, at 1:02 PM, Donald Chester <k4kyv at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I ran into a thread on this very subject recently on another list. The gist of the conversation was
> that it is a different world to-day. We used to make "things" and use them but today people BUY "things" 
> and use them. The generation that grew up in the great depression were pretty good at fixing almost anything. 
> People, especially in rural areas did their own plumbing, carpentry, painting, soldering, mixing concrete, 
> car and machinery repair, etc. Hams built their own equipment, often as not out of necessity. To-day's trend
> is for hams to just whip out the credit card to purchase the latest whiz-bang miracle radio with all the bells and 
> whistles, purchase a commercially built dipole and string it up, plug in the rig, and start talking. But 
> few young people even bother with that, since they can use the cell phone and internet to communicate with
> about anyone anywhere on the face of the planet free of charge without going to all the trouble of getting
> a licence and setting up a ham station. I have gone to neighbours' houses to help with some kind of 
> problem ranging anywhere from RFI to starting a lawn mower, and found that they had absolutely no hand tools on the 
> premises. Not even a hammer or screwdriver, so I had to go back home and fetch my tool box.
> 
> To-day about half of all marriages end up in divorce. We have a generation or more of boys and girls who 
> grow up with a single parent. Most of the time it is a female because the women nearly always get custody of 
> the children. Many of the mothers do an excellent job raising their kids alone, but the kids never saw their 
> father change a washer in the kitchen sink faucet or change a tire on their car. The kids have little or no 
> exposure to anything mechanical or the use of simple hand tools as they grow up, but they are experts at texting
> and could tell you all about what's on Face book and Twitter and could teach a lesson on the latest fashion in
> clothing. Plus, people are conditioned to have limited attention span as a result of a lifetime of watching 
> commercial TV with its constant interruptions for commercial ads.



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