USE IT OR LOSE IT!!!!

[KD6VXI]

A BIG issue nobody wants to talk about is noise.

I got into AM where I had an s1 to s3 noise level on 75/80 and slightly higher on 160. 

Fast forward getting in a wreck and having to move out of the country and my lowest noise level was 30 over 9.  Wall wart switchers and solar pretty much destroyed operating anything other than modes like FT8 and to a lesser extent SSB.

So, I just stopped operating for about 5 years.  Couldn't operate what and how I wanted, I just built stuff and put it on the shelf.

Now I'm back where the noise level is reasonable (s7 or so, but I digress).... So I'm setting a station up for am and ssb.

"If you can't hear em, you can't work em", is still real.  What's new is noise levels for most people, sadly, today, are what we used to consider a decent signal!!!!!

Everything else in the thread is still also valid.  But as someone who had to give the hobby up for years because of family , those aren't the only reasons.

Radio is no fun when you only hear bacon frying static.



--Shane
WP2ASS /ex KD6VXI

[W1DAN]

Bear:

I stay off 75AM to avoid YOU!  ....just kidding. :-)

Actually, my local powerline and switching supply QRN has increased, from S3 in 2005 to S9+10dB today. This makes it hard for me to hear stations.

Since I have used and modified many tube transmitters and built Class-E, I bought a Hermes Lite 2 SDR transceiver. With 15M and 10M being open, I have been enjoying SSB and AM on these bands while using Norm W1GYY's homebrew LDMOS amp.

I hope to build a filter and antenna for 40M AM.

You'll hear me again, but work keeps me hopping!

Cheers,
Dan
W1DAN

[KD6VXI]

Funny.

I've been on a Hermes and a 1 x 8 mrf455 amp I built in the 80s for a few years now.

Sad to see my comment about noise rings true for others.....  shit sucks.

--Shane
WP2ASS  / ex KD6VXI

[Tom W2ILA]

I always seem to pick a fun time to return.... 

What's the saying? Everything that is old is new again? We had this same discussion a decade or two back. The only difference now is that there are fewer of us with respect to AM or other 'traditional' modes. The bands are indeed growing quiet.

As Steve said - when in doubt, call CQ! Activity begets activity. Problem here is, as in the past, there are always a few 'spark plugs' who regularly operate and many, many more 'followers' who wait for others to do the work. I recall clearly some years back one of the regular members here saying 'I'm not very good at calling CQ, I'd just rather wait and let you guys get things going then I'll join in'. Translation: you guys get the party going so I can have fun at my leisure/whenever I feel like turning on the radio. Nets (aka Directed Roundtables) are a perfect example of this.

Return Todd?  I look forward to that.  If anyone could get on a net and shine about picking up 1/8? ball bearings from the basement floor it would be you.
And dont forget that pre-nets are now structured, formalized affairs where you get assigned a place in the rotation and once assigned you are discouraged from promoting idle chatter.

Get on the air.

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Return Todd?  I look forward to that.  If anyone could get on a net and shine about picking up 1/8? ball bearings from the basement floor it would be you.

Still don't know if I put that damned switch back together right. Got all the ball bearings back in, it clicks fine and the meter reads stuff, just not sure if it's the right stuff. Will have to compare notes with you on your 300G once I get it set back up.

Pre-nets.....yeah.....we seem to be losing imagination as much as operators these days.

Currently on 40 some nights & weekends, will look for you. 80m coming soon (maybe by the weekend)....

[K6JEK]

A BIG issue nobody wants to talk about is noise.

I got into AM where I had an s1 to s3 noise level on 75/80 and slightly higher on 160.  
...

Radio is no fun when you only hear bacon frying static.



--Shane
WP2ASS /ex KD6VXI

Me too. 10 over S9, 20 over S9. On a good day, good time, just 6 over S9. I used to be able to manage it. First a receive loop. Then two phased. Now it's just hopeless. I usually can't even hear the vintage SSB net. SSB! There are the web SDRs but then why do I have those great old receivers I got working and enjoyed using.

I will say, though, that after I finally got the 75M dipole back up after it was taken out by a storm, I fired up the old stuff and who did I hear? Don K4KYV all the way from Tennessee  doing a marvelous old buzzard about the flooding there. Time has stood still.  This reminded me of how enjoyable it used to be to get some old this or new that working and get on the air with it.

[W4EWH]

USE IT OR LOSE IT!!!

I am referring to the paucity of QSOs, here in the NE USA, especially on 75m.

Similarly, the activity on this forum has really reduced substantially from years past, although
that can not be attributed to "band conditions".

Just one example, I hear 30+ stations check into the "Lonely Guys" net, and most are
not heard from after the net or any other time... what's up with that??

Lately, a regularly meeting SSB group has camped at 3875 every evening...
...a decade ago that would have never happened.

The excuse of avoiding certain types of QSO topics, that is thin. Frankly, that is why
we have VFOs... use another frequency, call CQ, make a sked!

Yes, band conditions daytime are pretty pathetic. Not early AM, and not evenings/nights.
AND, the bands will still support relatively local, <100miles, QSOs most days...

Yes, there has been attrition... that still doesn't really explain the lack of verve and
desire to just get on the air. To quote BB King here, "...the thrill is gone..."? Is it really?

Now, right here in this forum, most likely the folks who will post up on this topic, those are
the same folks who are posting in general. (which is fine)  Where are the others, where are the lurkers??

Why aren't they posting?
Why aren't they on the air??

URGE your fellow hams to GET ON THE AIR!!

USE IT OR LOSE IT!!

(...this has been a public service message from WBear2GCR, smAlbany, hippity hippity hop)

The knee-jerk (and, therefore, wrong) reaction of most hams would be "We're getting old!" - which almost begs for a quote from Satchel Paige: " age is a state of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it don't matter."

The answer IMNSHO (which, to my mind, is the one most defensible) is that the War Department doesn't need us anymore. Sorry to Pontificate, but it seems obvious to me: for most of the last century we were the reserve Corps of Morse Code operators that the military could call into service quickly if another war broke out: having been caught ubprepared in WWI, Generals and Admirals were determined to be ready-to-go the next time. We enjoyed both privileges and support as a result:
WE had harmonically-related HF bands, a generous portion of the RF spectrum available at that time, which could only have happened because Uncle Sam stood up for us at frequency conferences in an era when Shortwave Broadcasting was the only way other nations could spread their propaganda across Internatioal borders

Our gear was also a part of the plan: I met an elderly ham back in the Nineties, who told me a story about his WWII service. He had no reason to lie to me: He related the events he had been part of in January, 1942:

"I had just turned eighteen in 1942. and one day, an Army truck pulled in, and an Army officer flipped to a page in his notebook and told me "per Special Presidential Order such-and-such, we're confiscating your receiver and transmitter for use in the war effort."
His men did exactly that, and the officer looked the ham over and asked "How old are you, son? When the other Ham I was talking to answered "Eighteen", the officer flipped to another page in his notebook and said "per Special Presidential Order this-and-that, you're coming too!

He spent the entire war, he told me, as a Morse radio operator all over the South Pacific.

When I took the "novice" test in 1964, there was a question about how to cure key-clicks in transmitters which was probably limited to an already-existing Command Set transmitter. In later years, I realized that it was really asking "Are you ready to make field repairs on simple Command sets?" Those of us whom took the "Novice" exam might remember questions in the ARRL Exam book about how to determine the length of a dipole antenna, also a skill needed for setting up "Field Expedient" radio sites from scratch. IIRC, there were questions about different types of coaxial cable in the ARRL book too: knowledge needed by field personnel.as well. To pass the "Extra," I had to pass a Morse test given at 20 WPM - to this day, the speed needed to qualify for a Second-class Commercial Radiotelegraph licence.


Well,(liike everything) this is just one ham's opinion. I think that the reduced use of HF, or Ham radio in general, comes from the fact that the ruling class wanted more Morse and radio experts then, but not so now. There are no contemporary film shots of Andy Hardy reaching out for love while in front of a radio, nor does Ton Swift have an Electric Runabout any more. We're not a part of the plan anymore: there's no longer any cachet to ordering a pizza from our car, or to having a 1/4-wave antenna for ten meters on our rear quarter-panel. Nobody is impressed now.

Bill, W4EWH