Topband: New Modes, Systems, etc

[W0MU Mike Fatchett]

Roger,

If you are so confident that digital is going to fail, why not sit back 
and let it happen?  I have never figured out why people in the hobby 
would actively seek to push people out of the hobby. What I find most 
interesting is that those trying new things and experimenting never seem 
to "attack" those that don't.  Why is that?

Like all hobbies people come and go for their own reasons.  There is a 
hell of a lot more to the hobby than working people on AM, CW or SSB on 
HF, chasing DX, contesting etc.

As for your 2nd to last paragraph, those are your opinions.  Those are 
not facts.  There is skill involved.  There is a bunch of excitement and 
achievement.  You just keep repeating the same old things to make 
yourself feel better.   Congratulations to your old guard in England for 
being able to run people off your repeaters. That is something to be 
proud about?  Wow!    The ARRL RTTY roundup ran recently and FT/X and 
other modes were allowed but those modes or types were never really 
pushed. https://3830scores.com/currecscores.php?arg=01cgsXz7mgcyx  Why 
don't you click the link and see how many people used digital? This list 
only those that know about 3830.  Yes RTTY is the champion by far but it 
would seem to me that a lot of people sure had fun digital.

I understand you don't like.  FT8 users got that long ago.  I know 
plenty of hams who will never get on CW but I never hear them 
criticizing it or even thinking about jamming things they don't like.

In the USA this is what Ham Radio is according to the FCC.

§97.1 Basis and purpose. The rules and regulations in this part are 
designed to provide an amateur radio service having a fundamental 
purpose as expressed in the following principles:
(a) Recognition and enhancement of the value of the amateur service to 
the public as a voluntary noncommercial communication service, 
particularly withrespect to providing emergency communications.
(b) Continuation and extension of the amateur's proven ability to 
contribute to the advancement of the radio art.
(c) Encouragement and improvementof the amateur service through rules 
which provide for advancing skills in both the communication and 
technical phases of the art.
(d) Expansion of the existing reservoir within the amateur radio service 
of trained operators, technicians, and electronics experts.
(e) Continuation and extension of the amateur's unique ability to 
enhance international goodwill.

I think many have lost sight of this.  Encouragement is not telling 
people that FT8 sucks, that you have no skill, it is not ham radio, 
nobody will stay with it etc.  It is certainly not about jamming people 
out off a repeater.

Where is your goodwill?  Instead of constant criticism of the modes, 
where is the reaching out to others to try CW or SSB or some other parts 
of the hobby?    All I see is oh you run X  Get out of here.  I find it 
extraordinary that somehow you can tell someone what will be exciting to 
them or what is an achievement to themor what takes skills and you don't 
even know them.  What is wrong with Ham Radio today?  This!

Anyway we have our own group of nearly 100 people in less than a day.  
We will continue on in a friendly fashion and will have fun and if FT/X 
dies so be it.  I bet something else might come along to replace it.


I get a big thrill out of working any DX on 160.  CW or FT8 or SSB.  It 
is hard from Colorado even with fairly decent setup.  I can work DX on 
FT8 on days I never hear a thing on CW.  You have lived your life next 
to a nice salt ocean very close the population center of the USA, not to 
mention how close you are to so many other countries.  Topband for you 
is very different than the Topband I have.  Working states is similar to 
your working DX in Germany or Sweden and even Africa and parts of the 
middle East.

It saddens me that owner of this list has similar views to yours Roger.  
Tree was one of the guys I looked up to as a young contester.  He was 
one of the first to push the envelope with a Sweepstakes Robot and 
really helped with log checking and so many other advancement in 
Contesting and the hobby.  It is sad that some can't be accepting of 
what others do.  It is sad that we had to create another list because 
people could not be civil.



73,

W0MU




>
> It's easy to appreciate why many people - who are passionate about the 
> hobby
> - get upset about some of the things they see as being very negative 
> to the
> hobby.
>
> Here in Britain there were LOTS of well-respected Amateurs who were 
> actively
> involved in Jamming the VHF Repeaters when they first came on the air 
> in the
> 1970s. I would never have done such a thing, but I appreciated why those
> people were concerned about it having a negative effect on the hobby.
> People could now not bother to put up a decent antenna for 2m, yet work
> stations 50 miles away.
>
> However, most new amateurs that did that very quickly got bored with the
> hobby, as there was no sense of achievement, no reason to self-improve 
> . . .
> and disappeared off the air.  Those that got the satisfaction of working
> stations further away through their own efforts were usually the ones 
> that
> sustained interest in the hobby.
>
> (It's interesting that there is almost NO activity on the various 
> Repeaters
> here in Britain these days . . . which kind of confirms my point!)
>
> I think it's the same logic that many of us apply to the computer-based
> modes/protocols . . . that there is no skill involved, and so no real 
> sense
> of achievement, like there is when puling a really weak DX station out of
> the noise . . . with the result that those people will very soon lose
> interest in the hobby.
>
> So those of you who are so keen on them, please at least understand our
> motives . . . it's because of our passion for the hobby that we are 
> against
> these computer-based modes . . . in the same way as I personally am 
> against
> VHF Repeaters or accessing remote Transmitting or even Receiving sites.
>
> Roger G3YRO
>
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