[Elecraft] Reaching Across the Chronological Divide

[Bill Frantz]

One of the young people in our club -- late 20s or early 30s is 
my guess -- said at a meeting that he liked contesting because 
in a contest, he does not have to listen to old men describing 
their medical problems. He is now a very up and coming contester.

Moral of the story, try to rag chew about fun things when 
talking with strangers.

My own observation is that conversation with strangers is an art 
form. It can easily be practiced in airport waiting rooms, but 
perhaps the best place is the club car on a long distance train. 
Skill in it is valuable for a radio rag chewer.

(And I miss rag chewing with PSK31. FT8 just isn't the same.)


Yesterday, my 6 year old grandson was lucky enough to receive a 
pair of walkie-talkies. They are AM units on 49.86 MHz. I was 
able to receive them with my KX3 and an AT1. He has been using 
them quite actively since he opened them.

They also have a morse code chart printed on the radio and a 
button to use for sending morse code. My grandson's father 
(KI6NVN, but not a CW op) and I described morse code to him, and 
I sent some things, including his name, in code. We told him we 
didn't expect him to learn code quickly -- he's just in 
kindergarten -- but we would let him hear what it sounds like. 
Who knows where this moment will lead.

73 Bill AE6JV

On 12/22/19 at 11:37 PM, donwilh at embarqmail.com (Don Wilhelm) wrote:

>Bring ragchewing back, and I am not talking about the nets on 
>80 and 40 meters, it is reaching out to someone new and telling 
>a bit about ourselves and getting the same in return.

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