Ham Radio is "faintly embarrasing?"

The opinions of this TIME magazine clown are irrelevant. Some magazines publish ignorant drivel just to generate controversy. Shouldn't get anyone bent out of shape. So long as you enjoy ham radio, what difference does it make if some dude you've never heard of thinks it's not cool?

Tom,
K2AES

 

You tell me/us.....I'm sure you have the CORRECT answer.

 

Perhaps if you can't find any women who can handle the truth you are looking in the wrong places. If not, maybe you should give up. Are the rest of your attributes so low that being discovered as a "ham" will be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back?
Then again you can maybe have a great relationship with someone you'll have to treat like a mushroom. Many do it every day.

 

... faintly embarassing, Lev?  Like having your highbrow, egoistic Generation X pretense exposed and resoundingly thumped?

Ivan Cook, K4SRB
Tallahassee, Florida

 

Nah, thats on another thread. this one is dedicated to the fact that we are sitting on a computer getting worked up about a comment made by some guy most of us have never heard of about a hobby thats more futuristic, and yet, out of date than most.
Funny thing is that Grossmans original beef was with blogs, not ham radio, but he mentioned our sacred hobby (it really IS a hobby guys) in a less than flattering tone, and we now have something to rally behind. by the looks of these posts, Grossman wrote a new book on how loathesome ham radio is and Lev himself is going to reallocate our bands.
As far as Time having a 'left wing' slant, i dont know if you have read it, but they are anything but left wing....lefty rags dont put W's mug on the cover and call him 'man of the year'...they would draw a pancho villa stache on him or something.
Ill be honest with you, im the most useless ham in the world, im a DXer. i collect countries and cardboard. and if im made to feel bad about that then you would get the same shrug of the shoulders that im giving Grossman. I passed 20 wpm back in 84...strangely, its cool but not something i use to impress people with.
No, if a disater were to happen in my community, i wouldnt touch my ham gear....i would get my boots on and go help with my hands wherever i was needed, pulling debris, filling sandbags, pulling people out, whatever i needed to do because it is happening to MY community and MY neighbors...standing there with an HT is pretty far down the list of priorities for most emergency crews.
I know there are more than a few of you who agree with this thinking, and many who dont but thats ok....would you really want to live in a world where everyone had the exact same opinion? if so, then whos opinion should we all have?

...thats when sensitized arguments start.

I agree with Ed, a disaster happened of biblical magnitude, there are whole communities washed away, families ripped apart, children dead...whats our current 'disaster'? Lev Grossman! and we are freaked out about THIS???

maybe i AM a little embarrassed.

 

Hey Lawrence........KB9IKY

It's actually called "Morse Code"

That would be "-- --- .-. ... .   -.-. --- -.. ."
for the Morse impaired...
Do you still own all your own teeth too?
Geeeeeeeeeeezz Now I am embarrassed!

73 de Tom & jilted grand master of the dits and dahs

 

What ?? Do we really expcet more from the media ?
Since when ? Articles like this do not upset me, I have come to expect things like this from our increasingly uneducated populace. This is not the first time that Time has printed this type of hogwash. I bought my last copy of that magazine in 1979.
At least we do have several Amateur Related publications that are worth their salt, and someone should send one to the misinformed persons responsible for the article.

 

ho-hum

 

Response (directed primarily to Bob Heil and others who sent comments to Time)

Bob,
Well done. I am glad to see that hams are not going to let a magazine of this stature (or any magazine for that matter) get away with making such an ill adivised comment.

As you pointed out in your letter many hams have contributed to our rich history. People like H.H. Beverage, John Kraus and others too numerous to mention have given exhaustively to the hobby but they have only sewn the seeds and left the rest of us to reap the benefits.

Many of these hams are now silent keys but they will never be forgotten. As long as our hobby survives they will be remembered each and every time one of todays hams succed in creating a new wiget or make a new discovery.

And what of the authors amoung us who have relentlessly published books and articles in the persuit of excellance and to ensure that the hams of today have the technical expertise carry on our rich tradition.

Suffice it to say that my 39 years as a ham have been a memorable one. Having known such great old timers as the 3 CU brothers (most notably W3CU) I can only say that Ham Radio is a hobby second to none.


Jim
Again well done and thanks to all of those who have sent responses to Time.

 

Response (directed primarily to Bob Heil and others who sent comments to Time)

Bob,
Well done. I am glad to see that hams are not going to let a magazine of this stature (or any magazine for that matter) get away with making such an ill adivised comment.

As you pointed out in your letter many hams have contributed to our rich history. People like H.H. Beverage, John Kraus and others too numerous to mention have given exhaustively to the hobby but they have only sewn the seeds and left the rest of us to reap the benefits.

Many of these hams are now silent keys but they will never be forgotten. As long as our hobby survives they will be remembered each and every time one of todays hams succed in creating a new wiget or make a new discovery.

And what of the authors amoung us who have relentlessly published books and articles in the persuit of excellance and to ensure that the hams of today have the technical expertise carry on our rich tradition.

Suffice it to say that my 39 years as a ham have been a memorable one. Having known such great old timers as the 3 CU brothers (most notably W3CU) I can only say that Ham Radio is a hobby second to none.


Jim
Again well done and thanks to all of those who have sent responses to Time.

 

Replying to this one:

"I don't think my post will be read, because there are SOOO many here.  I'm a "younger" HAM at 28.  When I'm meeting single women, amateur radio is never mentioned.  If I want to tell them what I do, I say "I volunteer at the Emergency Operations Center".  If they want to know specifics "I help out with radio communications".  If they're still interested, then I'll mention amateur radio.  I take care to mention I am only interested in the "emergency communications" portion.  

I'm not embarrassed, but I can't change public perception, so I have to make sure that people see that I like to volunteer and help, not a public perception of sitting in a radio shack just trying to get QSL cards.  I know that DX'ing and the contests requires skill, and can be fun.  Unfortunately, I can't explain that to single women before they run off in the other direction.  If there were more mainstream POSITIVE coverage of amateur radio operators in times of need, perhaps I wouldn't have this problem."

Commenting because I found this amusing, and I'm getting over the Time magazine "issue..."

Back in my single days I looked some in the wrong places and, realizing it, looked some in the right places.  In either I never found that my ham radio and other idiosyncrasies were a problem.  Maybe I was just able to pull this off by seeming charmingly quirky.  Yes, I was "different."  Some people, the ones I found worth bothering with, thought that was a good thing.

As hams, we may not be just like everyone else.  Cool!

-- Rich, KE3Q

 

yes we are like everyone else, ask a racecar driver, or an artist, a hors eback rodeoman.  You think they are not different, do you think your'e any smarter or more gifted, try doing their hobby sometime, I have.  Try enjoying riding a Harley up the highway you have just built from the ground up wiring and all.   We are all the same with different talents all cool, and not at all embarrasing in the slightest.

 

I've already posted on the Time magazine thing 3 times, but each time with a different angle on it, but at least in part defending ham radio as a technological boon to society and our bits of spectrum as a national (international really) resource and ham radio as the regular citizen's access to it. This is the fourth.

I have sometimes described radio contesting as "the world's greatest techno-sport." I still believe that.

Assuming there is an implication in what our detractors say that ham radio is obsolete or obsolescent (which I do not accept or believe), I would note that some of us, I for one, am also interested in vegetable and flower gardening, smallscale farming, fishing, hunting, riding horses and reading books, all technically obsolete activities to some people's way of thinking, clearly at least somewhat esoteric activities, but ones, I believe, that our world is richer for having and for keeping healthy.

Ham radio and "even" Morse code are among these.

Some people, including some media elite, might prefer to see us all be clones of one another (of them), all the same, all living in high rise condos -- maybe all in New York City, spending our time watching TV (probably things like "Sex and the City" and "The Sopranos," "Will and Grace" -- sorry to step on some of your toes), "surfing the web" and, no doubt, reading Time magazine (although reading of any type except perhaps on-line is technically obsolete).

To quote Bush-41 and trying to avoid being political about it, "Sorry, ain't g'nna duh-it."

Personally, I'm contented to let Mr. Grossman be Mr. Grossman; he should give me and us the same respect. Frankly, I do suppose I would be "faintly embarrassed," at a minimum, to be him, but I would have the politeness to not say so in Time magazine. If saying it here is vaguely similar, well I guess I'm being hypocritical.

G'night folks, it's been an amusing discussion.

- Rich, KE3Q

 

BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

STOP IT!! YOU'RE KILLING ME!!!!

(picks himself off the floor and regains composure)

You obviously don't spend much time looking through Q & A.

"... ensuring at least minimal technical competence and skill." Man, you slay me!

That statement might have been valid in the past, but I wouldn't say it holds up today.

Just my opinion.

 

I saw a funny SNL News Update with Norm McDonald last night.  The report went something like:

Yahoo was threatened by hackers yesterday.  The hackers stated that unless a fellow imprisoned hacker is released, they will take down yahoo, and the rest of the internet as well.  The FBi says that this is a difficult case to crack, and solving it may require the expertise of geeks AND nerds.

Just relax people!