Now I have a question and I am not quite sure which place it should be posted, so I will post it here and ask you what you would do.
To introduce myself would be pretty tough because I have had a lot of different occupations and I have worn a lot of hats and I have done a lot of different things in my life and I have gone a lot of different places and I have a lot of different experiences. I am a high school graduate - and I graduated in the middle of my class.
There was 365 students in my high school class.
I took just about every shop class they had and I graduated with a lot more credits (28) then I really needed. (21)
I also did a year and a half of college - to be a school teacher and 7 months of trade school to be a machinist
One of the classes that I took was called Power Technologies, which was run by a old codger that died that was a Ham radio operator. His electronics 101 class was about 60% theory and 40% hands on.
They had these old wooden kits that had bread board circuitry with wire jumpers and you would build stuff and he would check it with a pen that would play a local AM radio station if it completed a circuit.
It was a real cool way to look at a circuit without having to go through the jumper’s one at a time.
They had a radio club, which I was not picked to be a member and at that time, if you learned to Key Morse code - you could get your basic radio operators license.
I always had a little animosity towards those people because they did not pick me, even though I had more experience both running a CB outfit since I was about 5 or 6 and theory and general knowledge - since I had relatives that used radio communications as a hobby including my dad which built his own radios from kits and stuff.
Now I had a cousin, who married a guy who was something of a jerk.
He was also into CB radios and was always trying to beg my dad's CB off him, because his CB was of a type that would have made a good short wave radio - which I came to find out that one of my radios was actually made into a Ham after I lent it to a guy and he never gave it back.
So like most people I got out of the communications stuff and into girls, cars, trucks, loud stereos, big tires, race cars - all the normal things that people in my area of the country gets into.
So anyways, after working the internet for 10 years, I got the notion to get back into two way communications - Ham radio, since there is no one in my area that still talks on the CB radio.
Believe me; it is like a ghost town on the CB right now.
So I decided to get my general license and join a club.
I contacted a local club that was dying for new members and I went to a outing.
Who was the first person that I ran into? My X cousin's husband.
Now immediately - just because he is a jerk and just because he was jilted by his wife - my cousin 15 years ago, he decided that I was not club material. And, he went so far as to start acting like a idiot in front of all of the other club members. Saying stupid stuff like that you need a power supply, you need a radio, you need a license, don't get caught using the radio without a license and stupid stuff like that.
The funny thing is - he has not seen me but twice in the last 20 years and both of those times it was at funerals. Both his X wife's and his X father in laws. Now at one time, we were even good hunting buddies and although you couldn't trust him and he would jump off the handle like Dr Jeckel and Mr Hyde - he wasn't really a bad guy - just a jerk.
So they had set up for a Ham Fest and the younger guys went to work the FM and the Internet repeater stuff and the old guys stayed in the cold shack and worked the 20 Meters.
Now I guess when you get up into your 70's and 80's and have done it as long as these guys have been doing it - you get to the point of where you don't really care anymore.
One guy really did work his butt off for about 2 hours, calling out CQ's while I wrote down the call letters and the names and the locations and the remarks for the signals we received.
Florida was actually booming in - because of the direction they had their beam antenna pointed in.
The younger guys, mainly came to eat, which they did on a regular basis, walking through the shack, talking so loud that you couldn't hear the little dinky speaker on the ICOM radio and leaving the doors open - which left all the heat out of the room. It was about 24* outside.
So the other guys, working 3 or so radios got about 140 calls - working the FM, which in my opinion is a lot easier when you don't have to listen to the static and stuff.
On the other hand, our group only got about 35 messages, but they were from all over the place.
Puerto Rico, Florida, all parts of Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Minnesota off the sides of the beam.
Then the one older gentleman had to go home and no one wanted to work the radio anymore.
Someone got the bright idea to let me talk and they would write down the information.
Now I have not talked on any radio for about 30 years and I have not talked on the Ham radio for about 32 years and I was a little rusty. But something just seemed right. I think when the younger crowd heard me on the radio and I wasn't all business, they got to the point of where they were waiting in line to talk and we had a steady stream of customers. I think I ended up with about 60 more contacts in 3 hours.
Well the President of the club came into the club house and saw me on the radio and got mad and told them to shut it down, that the Hamfest was over.
The information I wrote down, I had a scratch copy on the back of some paper - which the letters were wrote bigger then on the form and all the information was there in case you couldn't read something, but he just threw it in the garbage.
That made me think that maybe my X cousins husband might have said something to the President and maybe they don't want me for a member.
Now I don't really need to be a member of any club in order for me to get my license or to set up a radio station in my house. I have plenty of other people, with 50 or more years of experience that I can lean on if I have a question. But it kind of made me feel bad when I went home - because I felt like I was intruding or something or that I really did something wrong here.
I just wonder if maybe this is the reason why the population of Ham Radio Operators is getting smaller and smaller and the age group of Ham Radio Operators is getting older and older.
I'm also wondering - since I am new here - how much longer it will survive if other people has been shunned and turned away or treated like this by some members of the community.
Maybe something that I have wrote here will strike a cord with some of the Ham Radio fraternity and maybe someone will speak up and tell me what I did wrong or if I should just walk away from this one.
To introduce myself would be pretty tough because I have had a lot of different occupations and I have worn a lot of hats and I have done a lot of different things in my life and I have gone a lot of different places and I have a lot of different experiences. I am a high school graduate - and I graduated in the middle of my class.
There was 365 students in my high school class.
I took just about every shop class they had and I graduated with a lot more credits (28) then I really needed. (21)
I also did a year and a half of college - to be a school teacher and 7 months of trade school to be a machinist
One of the classes that I took was called Power Technologies, which was run by a old codger that died that was a Ham radio operator. His electronics 101 class was about 60% theory and 40% hands on.
They had these old wooden kits that had bread board circuitry with wire jumpers and you would build stuff and he would check it with a pen that would play a local AM radio station if it completed a circuit.
It was a real cool way to look at a circuit without having to go through the jumper’s one at a time.
They had a radio club, which I was not picked to be a member and at that time, if you learned to Key Morse code - you could get your basic radio operators license.
I always had a little animosity towards those people because they did not pick me, even though I had more experience both running a CB outfit since I was about 5 or 6 and theory and general knowledge - since I had relatives that used radio communications as a hobby including my dad which built his own radios from kits and stuff.
Now I had a cousin, who married a guy who was something of a jerk.
He was also into CB radios and was always trying to beg my dad's CB off him, because his CB was of a type that would have made a good short wave radio - which I came to find out that one of my radios was actually made into a Ham after I lent it to a guy and he never gave it back.
So like most people I got out of the communications stuff and into girls, cars, trucks, loud stereos, big tires, race cars - all the normal things that people in my area of the country gets into.
So anyways, after working the internet for 10 years, I got the notion to get back into two way communications - Ham radio, since there is no one in my area that still talks on the CB radio.
Believe me; it is like a ghost town on the CB right now.
So I decided to get my general license and join a club.
I contacted a local club that was dying for new members and I went to a outing.
Who was the first person that I ran into? My X cousin's husband.
Now immediately - just because he is a jerk and just because he was jilted by his wife - my cousin 15 years ago, he decided that I was not club material. And, he went so far as to start acting like a idiot in front of all of the other club members. Saying stupid stuff like that you need a power supply, you need a radio, you need a license, don't get caught using the radio without a license and stupid stuff like that.
The funny thing is - he has not seen me but twice in the last 20 years and both of those times it was at funerals. Both his X wife's and his X father in laws. Now at one time, we were even good hunting buddies and although you couldn't trust him and he would jump off the handle like Dr Jeckel and Mr Hyde - he wasn't really a bad guy - just a jerk.
So they had set up for a Ham Fest and the younger guys went to work the FM and the Internet repeater stuff and the old guys stayed in the cold shack and worked the 20 Meters.
Now I guess when you get up into your 70's and 80's and have done it as long as these guys have been doing it - you get to the point of where you don't really care anymore.
One guy really did work his butt off for about 2 hours, calling out CQ's while I wrote down the call letters and the names and the locations and the remarks for the signals we received.
Florida was actually booming in - because of the direction they had their beam antenna pointed in.
The younger guys, mainly came to eat, which they did on a regular basis, walking through the shack, talking so loud that you couldn't hear the little dinky speaker on the ICOM radio and leaving the doors open - which left all the heat out of the room. It was about 24* outside.
So the other guys, working 3 or so radios got about 140 calls - working the FM, which in my opinion is a lot easier when you don't have to listen to the static and stuff.
On the other hand, our group only got about 35 messages, but they were from all over the place.
Puerto Rico, Florida, all parts of Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Minnesota off the sides of the beam.
Then the one older gentleman had to go home and no one wanted to work the radio anymore.
Someone got the bright idea to let me talk and they would write down the information.
Now I have not talked on any radio for about 30 years and I have not talked on the Ham radio for about 32 years and I was a little rusty. But something just seemed right. I think when the younger crowd heard me on the radio and I wasn't all business, they got to the point of where they were waiting in line to talk and we had a steady stream of customers. I think I ended up with about 60 more contacts in 3 hours.
Well the President of the club came into the club house and saw me on the radio and got mad and told them to shut it down, that the Hamfest was over.
The information I wrote down, I had a scratch copy on the back of some paper - which the letters were wrote bigger then on the form and all the information was there in case you couldn't read something, but he just threw it in the garbage.
That made me think that maybe my X cousins husband might have said something to the President and maybe they don't want me for a member.
Now I don't really need to be a member of any club in order for me to get my license or to set up a radio station in my house. I have plenty of other people, with 50 or more years of experience that I can lean on if I have a question. But it kind of made me feel bad when I went home - because I felt like I was intruding or something or that I really did something wrong here.
I just wonder if maybe this is the reason why the population of Ham Radio Operators is getting smaller and smaller and the age group of Ham Radio Operators is getting older and older.
I'm also wondering - since I am new here - how much longer it will survive if other people has been shunned and turned away or treated like this by some members of the community.
Maybe something that I have wrote here will strike a cord with some of the Ham Radio fraternity and maybe someone will speak up and tell me what I did wrong or if I should just walk away from this one.
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