The AM Forum

...JUST WONDERING,WHEN DOES SOME ONE BECOME AN OLD BUZZARD?..ARE THERE CERTAIN SIGNS,THAT CREEP UP ON YOU? PISS&MOAN,MORE CRANKY THAN USUAL,DISCUSSIONS ON MERITS OF CERTAIN TUBES/WIRE ANTENNAS?..'CANT BE JUST LONG TRANSMISIONS....UR THOUGHTS.....TIM...SK..

Usually, old buzzards are automatically created when the younger generation comes in and refers to them that way. 

That's the bad news.


Now for the good news:

In the case of ham radio, there IS no younger generation... so we'll all stay young turks and whippersnappers forever!!!   ;D ;D ;D

T

It comes the very first time you look at a new ham and say to yourself "Hell...  under the
OLD rules this clown wouldn't have ever passed the license exam!"

If it's true or not (usually it's NOT), you've just crowned YOURSELF as an Old Buzzard. No
Code created tens of thousands of Old Buzzards.


73's,

Tom, W9LBB

Considering the average age is 52 my guess is most of us ARE Old Buzzards and aren't ready to surrender to it yet !!!

Artical the Haynie quote came from. (http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/mccutcheon062603.html)

 >:(

Oh, crap!  I had been given the moniker "Old Buzzard Jack" or "OBJ" for as long as I can remember by the "gang".

Now I are one! 

BRRRRRRRRRRRR!!

 ;D

Jack
W1JS

I refer to myself as "An Old Buzzard" in training! :o ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

An OBIT???


How gruesome!   ;)


Mr. T., W9LBB

I became an old buzzard when I discovered amateur radio before I was licensed by hearing AM signals on an old antique radio that was capable of receiving 75m. That was back in the 70's. 

You're an old buzzard when...

You catch yourself on the air talking about your ailments and medications.

Your standard CW QSO includes the line "age is ____; been ham for ____ years."

You remember when the phone bands were mostly AM.

You operated the ham bands before Incentive Licensing.

You have an Extra Class licence certificate that you can hang on the wall.


What additional lines can we add to the list?

You try to mimic an Ozona Bob transmission
You repeat everything you said you said in the previous transmission
You know how, and why, you have to “dip the dipper” and “peak the peaker”
You can talk fluently about “grid leak” bias.

...... you don't hafta stop and calculate the length of a dipole.
...... you know what a dipole is and how to build one.
...... you know what side of the dipole the center conductor goes on.

Great question!

Its a state of mind really.

Its how you view the world, what you operate, what modes you use.
Most Offical Old Buzzards™ do not use computers with a radio, operate tube gear and use only AM and CW.
True Old Buzzards never use SSTV, PSK or any of "them new-fangled digital modes."
A balanced feedline, with attached neon bulbs, for the antenna is also a key indicator of Old Buzzardness.
Disdain of 2 meter CB operations is also a trait of the Old Buzzard.

I'm 41 and consider myself an Old Buzzard™.

And, I might add, I don't think being an Old Buzzard™ is a bad thing at all, no sir, not one bit.


Old Buzzards W8VYZ and W2KBW

To 3 thru 5, I have to plead GUILTY!  ;D You KNOW you're REALLY gettin' up there when you realize that next year you'll have held an EXTRA for 40 years!


To the list add...

You had to hold your General or Conditional for TWO YEARS before you could even APPLY for your Extra.

You actually sat your license exam at an FCC office.

You remember the openly Gay guy who gave the code tests in the Chicago FCC office!

Once exam fees were introduced, you can remember people referring to the FCC office exams as "The Most Expensive Code Practice in Town"!

You used the Naval radios NSS and NAA for learning code.

You know what a "Quarterly Examination Point" was.

You can remember the humongously powerful AM signal of "Double Yew Seven Nasty Uncle Peter" blowing big, ragged holes in the 20 meter phone band!!!  If that guy was running less than 5 KW, I'll EAT my S-Meter!    ;D

You used to work the 40 meter Novice band with a 7151 KC crystal, and used Radio Moscow's carrier at 7150 as your BFO! ;)

You deliberately use the term KC (kilocycles) rather than KHz (kilohertz)!

You can remember the joke nomograph that somebody at NASA made up for Kilocycle to Kilohertz Conversion!   :D

If you ever ran a Windom antenna with a SINGLE WIRE feedline!

Gee,--I wonder if this shows the ARRL`s  efforts at "fundraising", and attracting
new people are NOT working in spite of what they claim,--that it is still possible
to "attract" new people.
When all else fails, go to the government for a "grant" or "handout" like
everybody else does.
It will be interesting to see how this "plays out".
                                       
                                       73, K1MVP   

Maybe I could get them to buy me a new pair of HF-300's to go in my homebrew rig.

...when you start hanging out on 160 all the time.  ;D

You know your getting to be an old buzzard when your hair and beard turn white and you can motor by the local constabulary in a car with a big hole in the muffler and a tail light out and they dont even raise an eyebrow!!

You might be an old buzzard if :
     You remember that the examiner at the FCC office wouldn't tell you how many questions you missed; if you paid attention, he tapped the top of the file cabinet for every wrong answer as he graded your test (at least in Kansas City). 
     You remember drawing schematics as part of the exam.
     You remember a sending and receiving code test as part of the exam.
     You bought parts and equipment from BA.
     You still love CW on 40, even without that crystal.