[Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

[kstover at ac0h.net]

Just the opposite for me.
I make my living in front of a keyboards and four 27" monitors.
The absolute last thing I want to do when I get home or on the weekend is sit in front of the computer pounding function keys.
I do use a shack computer obviously but just for logging and such.
I miss the days when a DX contact wasn't a slam bam affair. You could actually have a conversation and maybe learn something.

I think it would be interesting for contest sponsors to ban technology for one year. No computer logging, no spotting networks, none of that stuff. Actually require a contact to last 2 minutes. I can hear the gagging now. If you can run SO2R without a computer doing the beam turning and radio switching and logging you are a FULL GROWN MAN AMONGST CHILDREN.

R. Kevin Stover    AC0H

ARRL, FISTS, SKCC, NAQCC.
One of the guys that made sneakernet irrelevant, in my little corner of the world.
“If it doesn’t work the first time you push the button it won’t work the 20th…Just stop.”

-----Original Message-----
From: elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net <elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net> On Behalf Of KENT TRIMBLE
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 5:51 PM
To: Elecraft Reflector <Elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

What is being overlooked in all of this discussion is that the bulk of today's ham population makes its living at a keyboard.

When the bulk of an eight-hour work-day is spent in front of a monitor, it should come as no shock that an entire generation will prefer making QSOs with keyboard-keys rather than telegraph-keys. For them it requires less skill, less time, and less patience . . . precisely the kind of activities most sought by millennials.

Everything on this earth evolves, including amateur radio, and evolution has never been straight-forward.  It explores, imagines, and experiments.  It leaves behind a trail of bad ideas, weird adaptions, and dead-end cul-de-sacs.  At one time trilobites ruled the oceans.  The oceans did not change, but the trilobites went away.

My CW class on Saturday mornings has several IT guys who work for the State of Missouri.  They are fascinated by code ... not their kind of code ... Samuel F.B.'s kind of code.  They learned it mostly on their own and want to get better at it.  They bring in keying projects, they bring in paddle renditions, they bring in mini-programming accessories, they keep bugging us to schedule forays to the boonies so they can throw wires into trees and "play radio."  No one has yet told them such efforts take time, skill, and patience.  Apparently they don't care. Why?  Beats me.  Come Monday morning they're back in front of their monitors all day.

In Hiram Percy's house are many rooms.

73,

Kent Trimble, K9ZTV
Jefferson City, MO



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