[50mhz] Wealth of knowledge; was 4U1WB

[Mike (KA5CVH) Urich]

You know I came into the hobby as a former 11 meter SSB operator in
the late 70's as well.  I already had pretty good operating skills
because where I "hung", lids and 10-4 good buddy's didn't tread for a
number of reasons.  But lets face it our hobby has greatly changed
since the 60's and even 70's but licensing had nothing to do with it
IMHO.

Those of you old enough to remember a majority of rigs of that era
were either home-brewed or built from kits, (my first rig was a
HW-101), because the off the shelf market was not as strong as it is
now and nor were those rigs economical.  Now that with a few
exceptions we live in a total "plug and play" (pnp) world.  Just for
grins I took the lid off my FT-100 some time back and immediately put
it back on fearing that I may break something just looking around. 
Yes ladies and gentleman "I AM A PNP HAM".  There is no way on God's
green earth am I going to lift the lid on anything to try and fix it.

That doesn't mean that I am one stupid or two lazy.  I just know my
limitations.  And I personally think that I am representative of a
large number of hams.  To this end I suggest that the licensing
structure should change to represent that we have moved from a largely
you build it you fix it era, to a "pnp" era.  I am not suggesting that
we should abandon all theory so don't go there.  However as two extra
class buddies of mine, AB5SS & W5DF both say.  You can get your
general class, get a rig and tuner from AES,HRO or Gigaparts, throw
some wire in the air and work the world. Where is the wealth of
knowledge in that?  And if it breaks you bitch while the manufacturer
is fixing it.

I'm not sure where we should go but I do know that just like in the
modern church era what worked in the 60's doesn't necessary work in
2005.  Hanging onto the traditions of the past is going to do nothing
for our hobby of the future.

And yes I am one of those hams who could never get over the 10WPM CW
hurdle so go ahead and check my license class, yes I'm a Tech+.  I do
have my 5WPM behind me but even in this era of slow code generals and
extra I haven't bothered to upgrade.  On that maybe I am a little
lazy.  But to be quite honest I'm not a paper chaser and I'm really
not impressed with much of what I hear on HF.

Waiting on the cycle to come around once more.

YMMV

-- 
Mike Urich, KA5CVH
http://ka5cvh.com