[QCWA] Re: QCWA

[Jim Mockley]

This has been a very interesting string. I would like to suggest some of the reasons for the decline in hams and membership have been technological. When we were all coming up the ranks, the internet didn't exist. It has become the ham radio of the present times. Secondly, When I was learning electronics and theory, I was blessed with a number of great mentors. Some are now SK's and some are still active. I remember how much I admired them and appreciated their influence in my life.

Today, the education of ham radio and for that matter commercial radio has been relegated to software based programs available on CD and DVD. Where did the hams with expertise slowly excuse themselves from mentoring the new folks? maybe that is where we can make a difference.  

I would suggest QCWA members need to re-assert their skills and help the new hams in their new field of study. The new courses available to these new folks do not teach electronic or radio theory and design. As was previously mentioned the new hams are learning just enough to pass the tests. Today, people don't know how to pick up a soldering iron, instead they have become appliance operators.

Lets start active mentoring programs and really teach some skills to the new generation before the skills die out with us! Let the current QCWA members set examples that make the new generation want to be like us.

73,

Jim Mockley W7JMM
Chapter 168