Kelly,
Great Post..
A lot of people talk about how computers and the internet are killing
amateur radio, but I haven't seen a figure on how residential restrictions
are keeping us out of the air. In my experience Puerto Rico is becoming
less tolerant
on antennas by the day, people dont care what you do, is either ugly or
gives cancer,
that's a trend that no one is changing.
Remote has gotten to the point that there's no difference between being
next to the antennas or not. in fact I see a number of fellow amateurs in
PR who use the remotes more now than when they had the station. Usually
wife and kids keep you away from Radio (hi,hi)
Also these remote station owners share their stations with others less
fortunate, is that a bad thing? of course not.. Internet changed
everything, but more than the internet is the interest that mixing
computers with radio brings.
Radios conected to their controllers over cat 5, software to track the
satellites, APRS
hss:mesh and many others are keeping the people interested. just look into
RTTYand PSK modes, are those guys currently pursuing DXCC on those modes
less amateurs?
How much time those guys spend on the Radio vs the computer? The radio
becomes part of the setup but believe me these guys will look at the
computer 100 times before they look at the radio. Anyone cares to look at
the face of the FLEX radio, uppss there's none.
If you are a purist just do your cw everyday and feel happy with it. Look
around and see the aging amateur community. Its evident that the
competitive side of people on the hobby is growing and it might be the main
reason for them to be active.
At minimum, instead of removing the extreme categories, a remote category
or at least an overlay should be added.
73's and flame on!
Felipe
NP4Z
_______________________________________________
CQ-Contest mailing list
CQ-Contest@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
|