Do they even exist? We had a black chap interested - and I mean
*proper* black - in joining our Radio Society here on the island, but he seemed pretty clueless and would have to be spoon-fed on all the basic electrical theory from scratch I would imagine. I'm just hoping I don't get the embarrassing job of introducing him to the rather un-PC mnemonic which helps you remember the resistor colour code! How awkward would that be? Seriously, though, has anyone ever seen a black ham at a radio rally or had a wannabe one turn up at their local club? It just seems to be an activity that doesn't much appeal to them for some reason. :-/
I think that many hobbies have an appeal that is limited mainly to those who found some sort of connection at a certain critical time in their lives. For me - Photography, Aircraft, Manufacturing. All can be related to friends and activities when I was between 9 and 14. I think Steam Railways and similar are going to struggle in a few years.
With radio - it was amazing at one time that you could contact someone a long way away to enquire if they were receiving you. It is no longer so amazing to young people - it is in the "so what" category.
Actually that's no longer the case. There's been a significant increase in new licencees recently. Every month in RadCom there's a list of 'em and it's up to half a pagefull a month currently. No idea what the reason is for this sudden new wave of interest, though. :/
All you have to be is breathing on a video link these days...Me?...I had to do a three hour written exam and a 12wpm morse test.......The morons these days go out and grave rob a class A G4 these days like fatso here....go to 3:40 I wouldn't ask you to watch all of this drivel.....
The Mrs is a G7 but she only signed up at the local college as a surprise for / with me and I didn't cotton onto her plan till she actually walked into the classroom with me (she made a story about meeting up with a mate for a meal at the pub opposite the college and was just coming to the classroom with me so she knew where to meet me later). ;-)
I'm pretty sure that's part of it and was / is the case for me (a feeling reinforced by a minority of them who seemed to have spilled into here). It was exactly the same as you get in more 'minority interest' clubs these days though. (I went to one Linux Users Group meeting and it was filled with the same sort of people as the local Radio Amateurs Users group I went to and never went back to either).
I mainly took my RA exam to do Packet Radio as I was already a datacomms guy and a fellow Tech, already a RA got me interested in that side of it and the though that I could help the system by running an AX.25 Node (which I did for a while).
So, I built several TNC's, modded a couple of Ex PMR's for 2M / Packet use and the only real voice communication I've had was over as couple of hand portables (FT23R's) between the Mrs and I (once when she was in hospital having our baby via the local 2M repeater and long before mobile phones were common). ;-)
I quite liked the whole Packet scene, it suited my interest in datacomms (the hardware), computers, programs and email type communications (pre cheap access to the Internet).
As Internet access became easier / cheaper I gradually did less and less over Packet (as did most I was talking to) and now it all sits here idle and has done for many years.
I believe there is still activity in that area and even a new more modern format.
One of the things that appealed at the time was knowing how the whole store_and_forward worked, including a post pox in orbit around the globe and all put there by the efforts of other like minded people. ;-)
The other ladies had to wobble down to the payphone in the corridor, she could order food and provision deliveries from her bed (in between discussion of the quality of the radio transmission etc of course <g>) with the Nurses and ward-mates thinking she was a mini-cab operator or some such. ;-)
As Phillip said at Sandringham, to a patrolling constable "Stop speaking into that F***ing thing, I'm trying to watch telly!" (The new Police repeater was about a yard away from the tv receiving aerial, I saw it))
I didn't want to bother with Morse because I only wanted to do Packet on 2m and you only needed a G7 to do that (so that's what I got). [1]
Is it that you don't like to be rated alongside those people who don't know what they are doing, don't know how to behave or why they should follow the rules or strive to be skilled using their chosen communication platform?
Cheers, T i m
[1] What proportion of people actually *build* their own stuff these days and therefore what knowledge is required to use commercially made kit (by comparison)?
I built a couple of BSX2 TNC's before I bought a Kantronics box ready made and used that instead.
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