In a message dated 12/4/02 9:57:23 AM Central Standard Time, wlfuqu00@uky.edu
writes:
> I was raised to obey laws. So when after listing to shortwave for
> a few years I became interested in becoming a radio operator.
> Those days you had to have a CB license to operate and to obtain
> one you had to be at least 18 years old. With the
> limitations of range and power it was obvious that I should get a ham
> license. I first got my novice and then
> general about 8 months later. I built my first transmitter (200 watt CW)
> while I was in the 8th grade. I designed it
> myself using information from the Radio Amateurs Handbook. I don't think
I
> would have been motivated to do so
> as a CB operator because of the lack of knowledge of the people that I
> would have been working with as compared to
> the ham radio community. By being in the ham community I had access to
lots
> of experienced people when I needed
> help.
>
> CB would been quite a distraction and would delayed my electronics
> education considerably. I may not have become
> an engineer if I had not become a ham. It was my eagerness to understand
> electronics as a ham that improved my math
> skills to the point where I could pursue a carrier in electronics. I was
> on of those that needed apply math to
> understand it well.
> Today, such things as internet and CB are just distractions for
> young people. On CB they learn right away to
> get amplifiers and make mods to operate illegally and no motivation to
> really learn anything except vulgar vocabulary.
>
> I am now am involved in teaching young people radio theory and
> construction techniques to advance them beyond
> just having a license. And in doing so they are also introduced to RF
> applications in science and medicine.
> RF technology is not just used communication.
>
> 73
> Bill wa4lav
interesting response bill. thank you very much. but i must say i've taken
quite the different path as you and i'm still on my long journey to reach a
place where most of the men on this list have gone or will go with there
knowledge and its a terrible thing to hear you belittle me or anybody else
who seeks knowledge, learning, and understanding just because of the
background we come from. what if your elmers had taken this approach to you
all those many years ago just because you were too young? or because you were
too short? or too tall? or for any of these silly reasons? i understand how
ham radio used to be and it sounds like a lovely and fond old memory that i
wish i could share with you but unfortunately i can't as i'm much too young.
my radio beginnings were in 1988 when i was 8 years old. i bought a little
receiver from a garage sale that was able to cover the 49 meter sw band as
well as some vhf utilities and such that got me curious on the goings on of
radio and it never ended from there. at the age of 12 i saved enough to buy
my first cb rig which was very simple and i made my first antenna which was a
sad looking 1/4 wave groundplane for which i found a schematic in an old book
at my local library. i promise you the satisfaction felt by me as a still 12
year old kid who just made his very first working antenna was not diminished
at all due to the fact that it was trimmed for 27 megs instead of 28 megs.
the satisfaction was the same and it felt good to talk with something i've
made. it wasn't long before i found out all about skip as the cycle was still
hot back then and it begin to interest me. i did all of the reading i could,
listened to the ten meter repeaters on the police scanner, practiced my code
with a home built oscillator, and even contacted a local ham radio group that
i seen something about in the news paper. it was with this group that i found
out the attitude towards me was very negative because of the fact i had
stumbled upon cb radio first instead of ham radio. these guys basically made
a young man who was soaking up knowledge at a fast rate feel like a little
boy with a walkie talkie who knew nothing. now at the time i thought these
guys were real super duper first class operators with all of there fancy rigs
and big antennas but after a lot of thinking and realizing it seemed to me
that they were nothing more than a bunch of unfriendly A--holes with a
superiority complex because they were "licensed operators" and i was not.
until then i was really ready to join the ranks of ham radio but decided i'd
rather not have anything to do with a bunch of men who consider me less than
themselves simply because i came from a cb background and they did not (i'm
real sure some did but wont admit it). now i assure you i did not let them
stop me from anything other than getting a piece of paper as i still did all
of the learning, experimenting, and fun things that any kid in ham radio
growing up at the time did except i did them on the illegal 27 megahertz
freqs and a lot of times with higher than legal limit power. i'm not here to
debate the merits of law with anybody. what i do and have done is illegal
pirate radio no doubt about it but IT IS RADIO and the theories, principals,
and drive that motivates us all to do it is the same regardless of
legalities. bill i wish i grew up in the era of homebrewing and point to
point wiring like most of you did so i could have the fond memories like you
do but most of the advances these days are with software instead of hardware
and you have to have a wide range of both to be able to do anything good for
the radio hobby in general and that key mostly lies with the young people.
its my advice you guys start accpeting and elmering anybody who is interested
in radio these days regardless of background or you may one day find yourself
without a hobby radio service at all.
73 de Tim Kp82
www.KpDxGroup.net
"The ability to make (and keep) many friends on the band, is the most
powerful capability of your radio. This can only be achieved through QSO, not
QSL"
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