Nate, I fully agree. Many new HAM's get A scanner to monitor the local going ons (Police, Fire Dept's, etc), or In our area, To monitor SKYWARN during severe weather. Many soon discover there is traffic at times other than bad weather and become interested. Maybe they catch A weekly or daily NET.
There are many ways to become interested in this great hobby. There seems to be no end to the learning. New methods, new protocols, mixing radio and computer, voice, digital and CW, etc. As for finding LOCAL HAM's, you sure won't do that on HF! I am A fairly new HAM and there are several people at our club who will just about bend over backward to help or teach you. Give you extra unneeded equipment, teach how to make A simple first wire antenna, etc. No "Class Warfare" Here! Bruce Bagwell KE5TPN ----- Original Message ----- From: Nate Duehr To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 8:02 PM Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: New 6M Repeater in Central NH On Jul 25, 2008, at 8:40 AM, Jason Greene wrote: > --- In [email protected], Nate Duehr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> No point in extending the pointless "license class wars" on a club >> website though. >> >> Nate WY0X > > I understood that caption as a reference their abilities. If you were > familiar with the club up here you would know this isn't a problem- no > ego's to deal with. I was a little nervous about saying anything for that reason -- different areas, different people. Not much overt "class war" going on here either, but a recent e-mail exchange with a grumpy old fuddy duddy who posted to a local VHF+ mailing list that people who use repeaters are nothing more than "pickle pushers" -- made me react badly to the caption. You know, (and I told him this too)... if he were putting on CW classes, RF engineering classes, and helping people learn, it'd be one thing. But he acts like he came out of his momma knowing CW and how to read Smith charts. That just chaps me to no end. We have plenty of nice folks who have come into the hobby through the use of our repeaters *first* who then learn about simplex, and then SSB, and then digital modes, and then weak-signal optimization techniques and antennas, and DX and... the list goes on, of course. What a great hobby. Repeaters are often the "gateway" to a lifetime of learning and camaraderie for many new hams. Treating them like crap does nothing to further any useful "cause". Sorry had to rant there -- hopefully that's on-topic enough for RB... about repeaters, but not really about building them... unless you consider that they're often the place where the local ham community gets "built" these days... -- Nate Duehr, WY0X [EMAIL PROTECTED]
