At 51, I'm old enough to understand the reluctance to embrace new
things. It's an interesting mixture of nostalgia, fear, and reluctance.
The truth is that sometimes, the "good ole days" really were better. I'd
give nearly anything to recreate those winter nights on 80 Meter CW,
struggling to copy at 7 WPM, and the thrill of working each new state.
Or to scan the shortwave bands and hear old favorites like the BBC,
Voice of Moscow, Radio Canada International, & more. They're all gone
now, like old friends, and remembered just as fondly. I also really miss
those summer afternoons as a boy, twisting my families TV antenna
"Armstrong style" as far-away stations from Texas and Denver pounded
into our set in East Tennessee. Bringing news and pictures from distant
places, and for a few hours, boosting the number of channels we could
watch to more than three.
I'm also fond of drug store soda fountains, muscle cars, TV Westerns,
and anything related to the Space Race. The past is a wonderful place,
and I like to visit there often.
It's also natural to be proud of your accomplishments. For those of us
fortunate enough to win high school football championships, the office
March Madness Pool, or a bowling trophy--it's natural to talk about
those achievements in terms of how difficult things were "back in the
day". I remember getting a bowling trophy once, and being really proud
of that---until one of the older members of our league started
complaining about how the "new" balls with their synthetic compounds had
so much more "life" in them and generated more pin action. He made it
clear that he considered my accomplishments to be "cheating" and my
award invalid.
Needless to say, it took a lot of the wind out of my sails, and turned
me off to bowling quite a bit.
I wonder if some VHF Men realize that their complaints about how EME or
meteor scatter contacts made using digital modes may be having the same
effect on operators now. Bouncing ANY signal off the moon is quite an
accomplishment, and do to it with a small station (single Yagi, low
power) is a challenge. Joe Taylor's software has opened up the
possibility of EME for a whole new class of stations. But little has
been done to make these newcomers feel welcome.
Change and the march of technology is inevitable. The history of VHF
operation is filled with pioneers who embraced each new advance in
technology, and struggled for every db.
When each new generation of solid state devices came along, noise
figures improved on our pre-amps. Computer aided design improved the
performance of our antennas, and gave us a leg up on those optimized
with only a slide rule and a test range. Did those advances make it
easier for operators to work weak tropo and EME? Sure--but I don't read
a lot about people attacking them as cheaters or "less than" those who
came before them.
That honor seems to be reserved for the dreaded computer and the evil
Internet.
We all know that Babe Ruth didn't take steroids, have space age cleats,
or specially milled bats. But he also didn't face the same level of
pitching or specialization that hitters must content with now. Awards,
records, and accomplishments are all measured against their time in
history. Just because someone won a VUCC using digital modes that
doesn't diminish your accomplishment back in the day.
Stop raining on the parade. Let the kid enjoy the bowling trophy.
--
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73,
Les Rayburn, N1LF
121 Mayfair Park
Maylene, AL 35114
EM63nf
6M VUCC #1712
AMSAT #38965
Grid Bandits #222
Southeastern VHF Society
Central States VHF Society Life Member
Six Club #2484
Active on 6 Meters thru 1296, 10GHz & Light
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