I was licensed long enough ago that I have seen a ton of changes in Ham Radio,
all of which were purported to make Ham Radio "easy " and make the previous
generation of Hams feel that their accomplishments were somehow being devalued.
Here are a few...
ARRL DX contest ending Quotas: "We could only work three stations from a
country, now you just sit on a frequency and call CQ, where's the skill in
that?"
When I passed my license test, I was told "Yeah, well when WE were licensed,
the was none of this multiple guess stuff, we had essay questions and drew
schematics"
As commercial radio gear became more available: "Appliance Ope rator s! W e had
to build our own"
The advent of electronic keyers: "It takes skill to send CW with a straight key
or bug (true dat...), now the keyer does the work"
SSB replacing AM; "Anyone can work DXCC on SSB"
QSL Bureaus: "you just send your cards to some dude in Pennsylvania/ Newington"
The ascension of DXpeditions: "They tell you when, what frequency and what
call, it's like shooting fi sh in a barrel"
The advent of computers. DX Cluster: "More fish in a barrel", Contesting so
ftware: "T hese guys don't even know what a crosscheck sheet is!" Rtty
software: "Nowadays, you just hook a computer to your radio, t ry keeping a
Teletype machine up and running"
CW requirement ended: "I hear they are going to put Ham Licenses in Cracker
Jack boxes"
LOTW: "like QSL bureaus but without QSL's"
Not to mention the Transceiver (and the once unusual but now c om mo n
inclusion of 160 meters which I am sure many OT's saw as the ruination of Top
Band at the time ) , Desktop Linears, DX nets, Rig/Antenna/Rotor control
software, D XCC record software etc.
All this stuff that made Ham Radio so much easier happened in my lifetime and
as a result, it onl y took me about 47 years to eek my way onto the bottom of
the Mixed DXCC Honor roll :)
So regarding reactions to FT8 , I think " 'twas always thus". Interestingly,
from the standpoint of a US Ham, the vast majority of FT8 QSO's are US/ NA to
US/NA or US/NA to common DXCC entit ies where the noise floor advantage of FT8
doesn't generally matter. I suspect that FT8 is just the "new mode on the
block" and an alternative to SSB for the op uninterested in or unable to
operate CW. I really don't think there are that many H ams who look at FT8 as
their opportunity to swell the ranks of the Honor Roll...
73 Kevin K3OX
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