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Author Topic: Tough times for True Blue  (Read 2617 times)

W2IRT

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Re: Tough times for True Blue
« Reply #30 on: January 24, 2023, 09:55:59 PM »

Quote
No they don't but if they get together and say they wanted it removed from the DXCC mixed award

I would love to see the PSC's reaction to this "request." They'd be laughing themselves silly. A handful of old timers with their heads firmly buried up their antenna ports vs the thousands of new (and not-so-new) DXers having fun, earning—and paying for—their DXCC awards, putting some form of life on the bands, and so on.

At this point we're approaching "mud wrestling with a pig" territory. Let the Sad Hams howl at the moon and pound on their keyboards until their fingertips bleed. Me? I'd rather be working as much DX as I can during this awesome new solar cycle, or else spending time with my wife, cooking barbecue, going camping, and Jeeping. I don't have time for closed-minded, self-righteous, holier-than-thou CW-or-else types who drive people away from the hobby faster than a dozen ARRLs could attract them.

Story time: I've been going to radio club meetings since I first got on the air in 1979, and for the most part nothing's changed. Repeaters are still full of half-in-the-bag d---heads chasing off newbies (only with far fewer newbies to chase now), 40 and 80 phone are still full of GeezerNets™ whining about the state of the world and kvetching about their various health crises, and online forums are full of anti-this and anti-that.

Well, two years ago, when Covid was still bad, I joined my first Jeep club, since I'd just bought my first Jeep. We had a hard-and-fast rule that we'd meet in person, no matter what, and when I got there, it was like someone had thrown open the gloomy curtains that had covered the dusty windows for 40 years. The first words I said to my wife when I got back home was "Oh my god, they're normal!"

There was no whining, old timers were respectful of newbies and I was roundly welcomed. We bring our families out to trail rides, we eat (a lot) together, go out for beers, and when someone needs help we all rush in. Rig break down on a trail? Guess what...every other member of the club, and for that matter, everybody in radio range, will drop what they're doing and come to that person's aid. No matter if they're in a $150,000 built Wrangler on a Red trail or a stock Grand Cherokee on a dirt road. Yes, we use radios. GMRS radios. We use it just as we do our air compressors, Maxtrax boards, winches and soft shackles. We don't sit there and obsess about whether Mike's Midland is better than Bob's Baofeng, or whether that repurposed ham antenna with a 1.7:1 SWR at 462 MHz is going to work better or not. We just turn it on and use it. In the two years I've been a member of the club I've done dozens of trail rides, each one as welcoming as the last. There are no crazies, except in a good way, and nobody howling at the moon that Toyotas are evil, etc.  Broncos, on the other hand....

Like I said. Normal. We have tech days where we help each other with builds, where experienced welders and fabricators help out guys like me who barely know which end of the ratchet to hold. Remember when we had Elmers in our hobby who did that? I can't tell you the last time I was at a radio club meeting that was anything like this. THIS is where new hams are going to when the Sad Hams chase them away. This, or sailing clubs, golf associations, or whatever else, wherever they are made to feel welcome. We have one other ham in the club (he's not active), and a few who are kinda-sorta radio savvy. I broached the subject about maybe holding a Tech class and VE session and one guy said it best. He'd been a ham for a number of years and he just couldn't stand the negativity on the repeaters so he put his HT in a drawer and never turned it on again.

So sit there and try to purge the bands of impure hams. They'll be only happy to either turn off their radios forever or tell you to get stuffed and carry on their Honor Roll quests.
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Night gathers and now my watch begins. It shall not end until I reach Top of the Honor Roll

Great times are at hand, and soon there will be DX for all—although more for some than for others.

W4AMP

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Re: Tough times for True Blue
« Reply #31 on: January 24, 2023, 10:56:55 PM »

Ding ding ding!
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VK3KTT

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Re: Tough times for True Blue
« Reply #32 on: January 24, 2023, 11:16:40 PM »

Quote
No they don't but if they get together and say they wanted it removed from the DXCC mixed award

I would love to see the PSC's reaction to this "request." They'd be laughing themselves silly. A handful of old timers with their heads firmly buried up their antenna ports vs the thousands of new (and not-so-new) DXers having fun, earning—and paying for—their DXCC awards, putting some form of life on the bands, and so on.

At this point we're approaching "mud wrestling with a pig" territory. Let the Sad Hams howl at the moon and pound on their keyboards until their fingertips bleed. Me? I'd rather be working as much DX as I can during this awesome new solar cycle, or else spending time with my wife, cooking barbecue, going camping, and Jeeping. I don't have time for closed-minded, self-righteous, holier-than-thou CW-or-else types who drive people away from the hobby faster than a dozen ARRLs could attract them.

Story time: I've been going to radio club meetings since I first got on the air in 1979, and for the most part nothing's changed. Repeaters are still full of half-in-the-bag d---heads chasing off newbies (only with far fewer newbies to chase now), 40 and 80 phone are still full of GeezerNets™ whining about the state of the world and kvetching about their various health crises, and online forums are full of anti-this and anti-that.

Well, two years ago, when Covid was still bad, I joined my first Jeep club, since I'd just bought my first Jeep. We had a hard-and-fast rule that we'd meet in person, no matter what, and when I got there, it was like someone had thrown open the gloomy curtains that had covered the dusty windows for 40 years. The first words I said to my wife when I got back home was "Oh my god, they're normal!"

There was no whining, old timers were respectful of newbies and I was roundly welcomed. We bring our families out to trail rides, we eat (a lot) together, go out for beers, and when someone needs help we all rush in. Rig break down on a trail? Guess what...every other member of the club, and for that matter, everybody in radio range, will drop what they're doing and come to that person's aid. No matter if they're in a $150,000 built Wrangler on a Red trail or a stock Grand Cherokee on a dirt road. Yes, we use radios. GMRS radios. We use it just as we do our air compressors, Maxtrax boards, winches and soft shackles. We don't sit there and obsess about whether Mike's Midland is better than Bob's Baofeng, or whether that repurposed ham antenna with a 1.7:1 SWR at 462 MHz is going to work better or not. We just turn it on and use it. In the two years I've been a member of the club I've done dozens of trail rides, each one as welcoming as the last. There are no crazies, except in a good way, and nobody howling at the moon that Toyotas are evil, etc.  Broncos, on the other hand....

Like I said. Normal. We have tech days where we help each other with builds, where experienced welders and fabricators help out guys like me who barely know which end of the ratchet to hold. Remember when we had Elmers in our hobby who did that? I can't tell you the last time I was at a radio club meeting that was anything like this. THIS is where new hams are going to when the Sad Hams chase them away. This, or sailing clubs, golf associations, or whatever else, wherever they are made to feel welcome. We have one other ham in the club (he's not active), and a few who are kinda-sorta radio savvy. I broached the subject about maybe holding a Tech class and VE session and one guy said it best. He'd been a ham for a number of years and he just couldn't stand the negativity on the repeaters so he put his HT in a drawer and never turned it on again.

So sit there and try to purge the bands of impure hams. They'll be only happy to either turn off their radios forever or tell you to get stuffed and carry on their Honor Roll quests.

post of the year and yes it is very sad.
Im lucky in in a very active club with a great dx'ing crew who help each other have tower raising weekends education and training and some really interesting speakers at our club nights Its across town  45- mins to an hour away so i don't go as often as i should. the number of  younger hams we have is great and they say and keep getting more involved in radio with good mentoring etc, there are too many sad hams around i run a face book dxing group for vk hams and 4 or 5 years ago when we started i was savage with removing anti ft8 ops and if there was an argument they both got banned at one stage i threatened to close the group. so now 3-4 years after the turmoil we have a great group who keep on topic and make sure plenty of vk's get to work the dx in the short window that they look our way. my only compliant it fb notifications take too long lol. no one needs sad hams with their doublets :) ... but we don't diss the end fed half wave crowd either. and congratulate when a new ham works Germany for the first time because we can all remember how great that felt.
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10m dx'er
is sdr the future i dont know

vk3ktt/k3ktt

VK3HJ

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Re: Tough times for True Blue
« Reply #33 on: January 25, 2023, 03:46:21 AM »

Hey, I acknowledge all the comments here and pretty well agree with all of you!
I really don't *like* ANY of the digital modes, even RTTY, but I do use them (mainly *that one*) to work towards my next DXCC Challenge goal. If the wanted DX uses *that mode* for a wanted slot, that's what I use. I would not care if all "data" modes were abolished from the DXCC Programme, but would not seek for it to be. A lot of folks seem to enjoy using data modes and I certainly don't want to p1ss on their party. At least *most* Data operators confirm fairly quickly in LotW.
I'm fairly new in the DXCC Programme, participating in only just over one Solar Cycle, but of the 328 current Entities I have confirmed, not one has been worked solely using any Data mode. That's not to say I am any "better" than someone who has, but I am fortunate enough to have been able to build a capable station that allows me to (so far) always make a CW or SSB QSO to the wanted DX.
I looked at the aims of the TBDXC, and thought they were admirable. But I'm not really into Clubs.
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K0RS

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Re: Tough times for True Blue
« Reply #34 on: January 25, 2023, 05:10:53 AM »

There are no crazies, except in a good way, and nobody howling at the moon that Toyotas are evil, etc.  Broncos, on the other hand....

Hey Peter, here at 9000 ft ASL I'm surrounded by forest service roads so I've got one of each (Bronco Sport and a Rubicon).  Does that make me a cross dresser?  The Bronco's my "road" car and the Jeep sees main duty as a snow plow in winter and trail use in summer. 

I'm pretty sure Toyotas are evil however ...
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"90% of the people in a pile-up have no idea what's going on.  It's up to you to be in the remaining 10%."  *W9KNI*

K0UA

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Re: Tough times for True Blue
« Reply #35 on: January 25, 2023, 05:29:12 AM »

Quote
No they don't but if they get together and say they wanted it removed from the DXCC mixed award

I would love to see the PSC's reaction to this "request." They'd be laughing themselves silly. A handful of old timers with their heads firmly buried up their antenna ports vs the thousands of new (and not-so-new) DXers having fun, earning—and paying for—their DXCC awards, putting some form of life on the bands, and so on.

At this point we're approaching "mud wrestling with a pig" territory. Let the Sad Hams howl at the moon and pound on their keyboards until their fingertips bleed. Me? I'd rather be working as much DX as I can during this awesome new solar cycle, or else spending time with my wife, cooking barbecue, going camping, and Jeeping. I don't have time for closed-minded, self-righteous, holier-than-thou CW-or-else types who drive people away from the hobby faster than a dozen ARRLs could attract them.

Story time: I've been going to radio club meetings since I first got on the air in 1979, and for the most part nothing's changed. Repeaters are still full of half-in-the-bag d---heads chasing off newbies (only with far fewer newbies to chase now), 40 and 80 phone are still full of GeezerNets™ whining about the state of the world and kvetching about their various health crises, and online forums are full of anti-this and anti-that.

Well, two years ago, when Covid was still bad, I joined my first Jeep club, since I'd just bought my first Jeep. We had a hard-and-fast rule that we'd meet in person, no matter what, and when I got there, it was like someone had thrown open the gloomy curtains that had covered the dusty windows for 40 years. The first words I said to my wife when I got back home was "Oh my god, they're normal!"

There was no whining, old timers were respectful of newbies and I was roundly welcomed. We bring our families out to trail rides, we eat (a lot) together, go out for beers, and when someone needs help we all rush in. Rig break down on a trail? Guess what...every other member of the club, and for that matter, everybody in radio range, will drop what they're doing and come to that person's aid. No matter if they're in a $150,000 built Wrangler on a Red trail or a stock Grand Cherokee on a dirt road. Yes, we use radios. GMRS radios. We use it just as we do our air compressors, Maxtrax boards, winches and soft shackles. We don't sit there and obsess about whether Mike's Midland is better than Bob's Baofeng, or whether that repurposed ham antenna with a 1.7:1 SWR at 462 MHz is going to work better or not. We just turn it on and use it. In the two years I've been a member of the club I've done dozens of trail rides, each one as welcoming as the last. There are no crazies, except in a good way, and nobody howling at the moon that Toyotas are evil, etc.  Broncos, on the other hand....

Like I said. Normal. We have tech days where we help each other with builds, where experienced welders and fabricators help out guys like me who barely know which end of the ratchet to hold. Remember when we had Elmers in our hobby who did that? I can't tell you the last time I was at a radio club meeting that was anything like this. THIS is where new hams are going to when the Sad Hams chase them away. This, or sailing clubs, golf associations, or whatever else, wherever they are made to feel welcome. We have one other ham in the club (he's not active), and a few who are kinda-sorta radio savvy. I broached the subject about maybe holding a Tech class and VE session and one guy said it best. He'd been a ham for a number of years and he just couldn't stand the negativity on the repeaters so he put his HT in a drawer and never turned it on again.

So sit there and try to purge the bands of impure hams. They'll be only happy to either turn off their radios forever or tell you to get stuffed and carry on their Honor Roll quests.


Very well said.
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73  James K0UA

K0UA

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Re: Tough times for True Blue
« Reply #36 on: January 25, 2023, 05:34:29 AM »

If Toyota's were evil, Paul Cox from Fab Rats wouldn't have a couple of them.

There, I have went and said it.
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73  James K0UA

EI2GLB

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Re: Tough times for True Blue
« Reply #37 on: January 25, 2023, 05:43:46 AM »

how long have you taken to work 328?? over one cycle would be a serious achievement to work that many, considering how poor cycle 24 was,

participating in only just over one Solar Cycle, but of the 328 current Entities I have confirmed,
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W2IRT

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Re: Tough times for True Blue
« Reply #38 on: January 25, 2023, 06:31:00 AM »

There are no crazies, except in a good way, and nobody howling at the moon that Toyotas are evil, etc.  Broncos, on the other hand....

Hey Peter, here at 9000 ft ASL I'm surrounded by forest service roads so I've got one of each (Bronco Sport and a Rubicon).  Does that make me a cross dresser?  The Bronco's my "road" car and the Jeep sees main duty as a snow plow in winter and trail use in summer. 

I'm pretty sure Toyotas are evil however ...

Depends on the 'Yota. I'd give body parts for an older pre-DEF diesel Land Cruiser 78 ("Troopy") or a classic FJ. They say if you want to go into the Kalahari take a Land Rover. If, however, you plan to get back out again, take a Land Cruiser.

I'm planning to take my WK2 Trailhawk out to Ouray/Telluride and on to Moab later this summer, along with a visit to Overland Expo in Loveland, CO. Always up for a wheeling trip if you're interested. Pics of my rig on my QRZ page ;)
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Night gathers and now my watch begins. It shall not end until I reach Top of the Honor Roll

Great times are at hand, and soon there will be DX for all—although more for some than for others.

VK3HJ

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Re: Tough times for True Blue
« Reply #39 on: January 25, 2023, 03:22:10 PM »

how long have you taken to work 328?? over one cycle would be a serious achievement to work that many, considering how poor cycle 24 was,

participating in only just over one Solar Cycle, but of the 328 current Entities I have confirmed,
I was inactive for about 15 years, and before that, any DX was incidental and taken for granted. Cycle 21 was a big one, and I assumed DX on the high bands was "normal"!
My first DX QSO since getting back on air was in July 2006 with Yuri RA9MP on 20 m SSB, using a fan dipole and IC-735. However, I didn't really start chasing DXCC until well into 2008. Even though that was near the bottom of the Cycle, I was working DX, then using a large Doublet antenna. In October 2009, I had my first DXCC certificate on the wall, and it's been All Systems GO! since then. Unfortunately, I missed a couple of activations right at the start of my QRV such as Libya and Scarborough Shoal, so they are still on my Wanted List. KY6R worked HR in just once Cycle, but he started just a few years before me.
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W2IRT

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Re: Tough times for True Blue
« Reply #40 on: January 25, 2023, 04:11:53 PM »

participating in only just over one Solar Cycle, but of the 328 current Entities I have confirmed
I was inactive for about 15 years, and before that, any DX was incidental and taken for granted. Cycle 21 was a big one, and I assumed DX on the high bands was "normal"!

My first DX QSO since getting back on air was in July 2006 with Yuri RA9MP on 20 m SSB, using a fan dipole and IC-735. However, I didn't really start chasing DXCC until well into 2008. Even though that was near the bottom of the Cycle, I was working DX, then using a large Doublet antenna. In October 2009, I had my first DXCC certificate on the wall, and it's been All Systems GO! since then.

Unfortunately, I missed a couple of activations right at the start of my QRV such as Libya and Scarborough Shoal, so they are still on my Wanted List. KY6R worked HR in just once Cycle, but he started just a few years before me.

That is very, very impressive indeed! It took me almost exactly 12 years to hit 328 worked. Myanmar was my #328 in Aug. 2013. It would be another year and two months until Tromelin put me over the top for Mixed HR, and IIRC Phone as well. CW followed in a year or two.

Those were the great days of DXing in the modern era, for sure. All sorts of ultra-rare ones were up seemingly every year. Between 2012 and 2016 there was Malpelo, Yemen, Auckland/Campbell, Myanmar, Wake Is., Amsterdam Is., Tromelin, Navassa, South Georgia, South Sandwich, and Heard Island. Those were all ATNOs for me. After that there's been nothing at all except the creation of Kosovo for a new entity, and now Crozet and (hopefully) Bouvet.
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Night gathers and now my watch begins. It shall not end until I reach Top of the Honor Roll

Great times are at hand, and soon there will be DX for all—although more for some than for others.

N5INP

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Re: Tough times for True Blue
« Reply #41 on: January 26, 2023, 04:33:59 AM »

Perhaps this happened back in the day -

"It is with great sadness that I must bring the True Blue Horse and Buggy Club to and end. Despite the tenets of the Club - to not adopt the new automobile as a mode of transportation, there are too many members jumping ship. Despite being urged by purist members to crack down, there are too many members starting to use automobiles and this Club cannot continue with these defections.

They seem to have just wanted to be a member of a "club" and don't really care about the true nature of it. So with great sadness I must announce the end of the True Blue Horse and Buggy Club. I hope the few true members will keep the horse and buggy mode of transportation alive and never give in to the new inventions that are ruining life as we have always enjoyed it."
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K0UA

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Re: Tough times for True Blue
« Reply #42 on: January 26, 2023, 06:20:48 AM »

Perhaps this happened back in the day -

"It is with great sadness that I must bring the True Blue Horse and Buggy Club to and end. Despite the tenets of the Club - to not adopt the new automobile as a mode of transportation, there are too many members jumping ship. Despite being urged by purist members to crack down, there are too many members starting to use automobiles and this Club cannot continue with these defections.

They seem to have just wanted to be a member of a "club" and don't really care about the true nature of it. So with great sadness I must announce the end of the True Blue Horse and Buggy Club. I hope the few true members will keep the horse and buggy mode of transportation alive and never give in to the new inventions that are ruining life as we have always enjoyed it."

Excellent
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73  James K0UA

W1VT

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Re: Tough times for True Blue
« Reply #43 on: January 26, 2023, 07:02:01 AM »

https://www.amishfarmandhouse.com/blog/amish-horse-and-buggies-guide/
Lights on For Safety
They also travel at night, in the rain, and sometimes in the snow; so be sure to be extra careful if you encounter one. Did you know that there’s also a small battery which powers the buggies’ headlights? It’s all powered by a rechargeable battery which is nestled below the driver’s seat and situated on the exterior.
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WO7R

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Re: Tough times for True Blue
« Reply #44 on: January 26, 2023, 08:13:39 AM »

I am inclined to be kind to MM0TWX. 

These days, there are a lot of people in the US, in Britain, that make political careers out of disputing facts, sticking out their jaws, and defying reality.  They get rewarded, but society is poorer for it.

I don't agree with his stance on FT8, but so what?  Let us give credit where due here.  We have someone who saw unpleasant facts, admitted to them in public, and took action in accordance with them.

That, I must admire.
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