Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to be a troll and I sincerely hope I don’t step on anyone’s toes here. I absolutely love this section on QRZ. I’m a died-in-the-wool AMer from way back. I would probably not have continued in this hobby had it not been for the mode. AM certainly deserves a place on QRZ and anyone can see that it is a thriving section on this site. There are multitudes of topics relating to the mode. And I thank not only Fred for allowing it, but also for the guys that persuaded Fred to set up a section for us a few years back. But why is the term “AM Fans” in the section title? Am I the only one who feels the term is a bit out of place? According to Merriam-Webster online the word “fans” was a shortened form of “fanatic”. We are not fanatics! We are simply devotees of an available mode for a variety of reasons. It almost seems as though early on someone considered us a small subset of the hobby (which obviously we are not) and the section would be a minimally used section. Is it too late to drop the “AM Fans” part and just title it “Amplitude Modulation”? Is anybody with me on this, or am I just being petty?
Gotta say I'd go with the latter In contemporary usage I doubt many people think every baseball fan has to be a fanatic, just someone who enjoys the game. I'd have no trouble with someone calling me a CW fan because I enjoy operating in that mode but I sure don't view myself as a CW fanatic as it's one of many ways I use my ham privileges and yeah my mics still get plenty of use.
To be concise, the term was devised by the founder of QRZ when he and I agreed on making this forum a reality. I’d be for dropping the designation. Anyone else?
Eric, I get where you're coming from on this, as you can imagine. It bothers you more than me, but Billy, yes, I would support dropping the term as not useful. Words have power. Just the other day I trotted out an old phrase that illustrates what we in the AM Community have been up against, in years past. 20 years ago I caught heat for the phrase when I used it in public forums and in Comment filings with the FCC. Yet, it turns on its head the whole, misguided presumption that used to exist back in those days, one of "AM = bad, SSB = good." The phrase? "...during SSB's struggle for acceptance." It had the effect, back then, of putting the fans of that mode on the defensive, rather than AMers, as if there was something wrong with SSB that it needed to force its way into our hobbyist communications. There have been other phrases posted on the QRZ.com AM Forum that the users unwittingly used out of habit, not realizing some of the subtle undercurrents they perpetuate against AM. I've called them out on it too, and they reacted with surprise that anyone could "interpret" what they said in that way, since no harm was intended. Nonetheless, Eric's posting has brought to light the value he and many others find to carefully worded presentations that support, rather than undercut, our part of the hobby. Tnx for spending consideration on it.
Are y'all, or are y'all not, fans of AM operation? Fan in common usage does not imply 'fanatic'. It just means that you like it. Yes, too picky.
I wonder if there's some other way than "fans" of portraying this forum in a positive way. There might be something lost in just having "Amplitude Modulation" as the category, since it does not give the potential visitor anything to go on. Is it for people on AM? Is it regarding the declining AM broadcast band? Is it a complaint department (hahahha)? So, yeah, I don't feel strongly about "fans," and I bet there's something even better we can use to characterise our discussions here.
