George:

Great story on your behalf and proud of your efforts to improve more and more as you have continued in this great hobby of ours. Anyway, admire your determination.

San K5YY

Sent from Mail for Windows

From: WB5JJJ
Sent: Saturday, January 1, 2022 1:02 PM
To: ADXA Mailing List
Subject: Re: [ADXA] Odd Experience Last Night

Thanks Rory and to echo your comments on the memorizers.

Thousands of new hams have come along the past few years and are suddenly Extra Class by one method or another. And for many, they only know digital modes, namely the FT variants mostly because of crappy band conditions for SSB, so it's not entirely their fault. What would the ham world be like if for some unknown reason WSJTx and other similar programs just stopped working. Many of these new digital hams would not have a clue how to exist in a SSB or CW world with band edges and propagation charts. And I know way too many that fit into this category.

First licensed in 1973, I was never a Novice, but spent 25+ years as a Tech because of the code requirement for General. I was either just too lazy, or scared to try and relearn CW. But I found out I had a 10m Phone DXCC when I finally got on LoTW. Then one day, I got the biggest surprise of my ham radio career, that as a "Coded Technician" I could be grandfathered into General since the code requirements were dropped. That day in 2000 was a big day for me as I moved from 10m to become a real HF operator. My IC-745 had been paitentily waiting for this moment for years to tune up on something other than 10m. It was just a matter of finding antennae that worked on something other than 10m. It took a while since I lived in an apartment at the time.

Then a few years ago, I was heavily pressured to upgrade to Extra. I considered it and did some study and boy did it bring back some long inactive brain cells. But finally, with help from ARVARF club's local 8 week classroom course, pondering the 700+ questions in the ARRL Study Guide, and some online study guides, I gave it a go in 2017 -- and passed the first time. Barely passed, but good enough.

73's

George - WB5JJJ

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