[AMRadio] Cw

Mon Sep 23 21:40:04 EDT 2013

The ham store in Paris, Texas is ceasing its 3rd Saturday swap meet at the end of the year. There's only about 6 or so vendors showing up......

Bill AD5OL

________________________________
 From: L L bahr <pulsarxp at embarqmail.com>
To: Jay Bromley <jayw5jay at cox.net> 
Cc: amradio at mailman.qth.net 
Sent: Monday, September 23, 2013 1:16 AM
Subject: Re: [AMRadio] Cw

Hi Jay,

Let me tell you a sad tail I discovered today.  There was a great small Hamfest put on by two clubs called the LUFKIN, Texas  Hamfest. It took place mid October every year.  It was held in a church gym, no cover charge, the local Golden Coral brought in a free breakfast, they gave ham exams and they had good participation of attendees and sellers at this small ham convention.  That all ended this year as the older ham who had been doing all the work retired from the job after last year's Hamfest due to his wife's failing health.  In one year, nobody from either club stepped in to take over the Hamfest duties.  Not one individual! So this nice small Hamfest is finished. (I initially knew nothing of either club's membership so I did some research.  The clubs are run by low class level hams, probably don't know Morse code and only know about how to turn on their 2 meter hand held.  The officers of one of the clubs have no e-mail listing, you have no
 way of contacting the club ot
her then through snail mail, QRZ shows no e-mails for any of the officers, etc.  In short,  I am sure the people in these clubs saw no benefit in a nice swap meet.  After all, only old junk showed up to their Hamfest.  After all, nobody there was selling the latest and greatest Japanese or Chinese rigs, so why hold a Hamfest?)  These people call themselves hams yet live in small communities and nobody in the club apparently has much depth of knowledge of the many aspects of Ham Radio.  After realizing the above, did I come to realize why this hamfest has folded because of no spark plug to keep it going.  You tune across the bands today and you will be hard pressed to hear anything intelligent going on let alone technical in nature.  This is a far cry from what you used to hear on the ham bands,  It's not just CW going away, it's ham radio as we knew it which is going away.  To be honest, if I was young man today, Ham Radio would not interest me
 either.  I have been instrumen
tal in forming a few clubs, building repeaters and getting them on the air plus maintaining them over the years.  Today I belong to no clubs as I have nothing in common with almost all of their members.  I do my own thing restoring old gear and talking to a few of my close friends wanting to do the same thing.  One last thing, this state of affairs is plaguing many hobbies.  Ham Radio is not alone in this regard.  My brother in law is big into Scale model railroading.  Same thing going on there.  Same thing going on with Tropical Fish Clubs.  Houston, the 5th largest city in the US can't have a popular Tropical Fish Club because of lack of interest.  

Lee, w0vt  

----- Original Message -----
Hi Guys,
I am somewhat amused by all this handwringing over the demise of CW when we
all should be concerned about the health ham radio in general.  My age group
is the bubble in ham radio population, 54!  There is nothing behind me for
younger hams generally speaking and a gentle slope towards older age groups.
Many of the old AM frequencies as well the CW sub bands are empty after 10
p.m.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLmNVBKX2ow 

Some think when they killed the code that ended CW.  Maybe that is somewhat
true, but for the manufacturer of high quality keys business has never been
better!  Just take a look at the Begali booth during Dayton.  See link
above.  Hummmm one has to wonder if there is not more money making other
things than paddles with their machining equipment! 

Here is another success story:

http://www.n3znkeys.com/

Maybe instead spending so much time on the internet like I am now writing
this BS we should spend more time on the air and Elmering new folks to the
hobby.

Contesting is about the rate and multipliers.  To complete you are going to
have to adopt to technology to do well.  Same thing for any competition
weather it is ham radio or bike racing!  If you want to use a J-38 and dupe
boards instead of your F keys and computer logging, good for you!  I am for
sure not going to knock what folks like to do.  However I will stick to
Writelog with my computer tied to everything from rig control to the keyer,
thank you!  I still contest in the last few hours with a crap antenna for
fun.  I am not going to win, heck no, but like to set goals for myself, like
working WAS, finishing off DXCC for a band, or a number of Q's within a
timed period is not only interesting, but fun.  I love running when I can.
Remember they need the little pistols to win!  Plus you meet some great
folks along the way just like you do in the AM group.

I am sure some of the other groups see us as just as UN-interesting as some
of you see current contesting part of the hobby.  Modern contest stations
can be an engineering marvels and provide another avenue to learn from.

To me, it is all good from DXing, to Contesting, AM, QRP, and even CW!  Dare
I say even SSB rag-chew with a good friend.  Not to worry for you guys new
to SSB I will slow down for you!  :-)

73 de w5jay/jay..

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