Gang,
I have listened to both sides of this topic or what a lot
of people preceive to be two sides but it is actually one
topic --- patience.
patience - the capacity, habit, or fact of being patient
patient - 1: bearing pains or trials calmly or without complaint
2: not hasty or impetuous
3: steadfast despite opposition, difficulty, or adversity
Why is this group, on the average, more patient?
1. We have to have patience in order to sit down for hours to assemble
a piece of equipment, debug it, align it, modify it, in order to get
on the air. We could have mail ordered or bought an assembled rig
and been on the air faster.
2. We have to have patience in order to sit for hours trying to work
on guy on the other end of the ether waves called the fox.
3. We have to have patience to sit through 15 minutes or more of trying
to work another station through QRM, QRN, and static crashes just to
get the correct callsign, name, QTH, and a signal report.
4. We have to have patience and not have an ego problem to be able to
many times write down our RST as 439, 339, and something other than
599 in the proper column.
5. We have the patience to watch topics recycled on qrp-l for the
second, third, and N-th time, where N is large.
So, when someone says that they don't want to waste time trying to listen
to a weak signal, fine. It immediately gives me a data point about the
individual and where their priorities lie. So be it. Let's go on with
our lives. Adversarial (I think I made that word up as it is not in my
dictionary - see, patience to go look something up) relationships don't
gain us much IMHO. A waste of time and energy that could be used for
constructive activities.
On topic of the comparison of the old rigs with the modern. I
wouldn't go back myself. I used a HW-16 for the longest time with a
HG-10B VFO. Stable and QSK without a relay. I have a two resistor
mod that will peak up the receiver if anyone hasn't done it yet.
Back in the early days everyone was using the same VFO circuitry, so
everyone drifted in the same direction and at the same rate so noone
cared or knew the difference. Not the case today.
I hear guys complain about how bad the NE602 designs are. Humph!!
I can hear just fine thank you very much. If I can hear everyone
that can hear me and hear many more than can hear me under 1W then
I think I have what I need.
So I think this is a good time to be a QRPer. Yes, we have those
outside and some on the inside that continually have some point that
we all should give it up. Ain't gonna happen unless the governments
take the frequencies away from us. I've thought about that too.
What would happen if we could not operate? I'll bet you there would
be some operation going on. :-) ;-)
So, sit back and relax. Enjoy the view. Enjoy the ride as the
new car commercial says. Turn off the computer and the modem.
It ain't helping your code speed or your country count. Turn
on the rig. Go Forth and Emit RF. Someone will be there for you
and hopefully it is one of the members of this group. Oh, look
both ways before crossing the street. :-) Hold hands. Take naps
like Nils does. Medication may help.
dit dit
Chuck Adams K5FO adams@sgi.com DXCC=11
http://reality.sgi.com/employees/adams_dallas/
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