[Moon] My attempt to get conversation back on track

Patrick Thomas p-thomas at mindspring.com
Wed Mar 14 00:06:06 CET 2018


For all you guys who are getting out of EME because of digital modes, please consider sending me your no-longer-needed transverters, amplifiers, dishes, feedlines, feedhorns, etc.  I'd be thrilled to "only" make a couple CW EME QSOs in a week, and I'm happy to invest my time helping to keep the lights on.  No sarcasm intended.

Frankly I think some of the frustration is justified.  Radio is a multi-person activity by nature, so attitudes of "let others do whatever they want, it doesn't hurt you" are not completely valid.

On the other hand, complaining on an EME reflector isn't going to change it... and taking sides will only polarize people.  If you want to have more CW EME QSOs, go breathe life back into the CW EME web chat!

By the way, personally I've had fairly good luck getting "millenials" interested in radio.  They need to be curious about how things work, and they need to have a reason to "care"... just like all of us probably did.  But it's very rose-colored to think that everyone thought ham radio operators were cool in the '80s.  At best, they were the kind of "cool" shared by assembly language programmers.  Even today, I challenge you to find a sciencey teenager who doesn't think it's cool to talk to someone by bouncing signals off the moon... using cw, voice, or digital.  I've discussed modulation with someone who was 19 a few years ago... later on he took a course in modulation theory (and thought my explanation of it was much clearer, I'm happy to say).  I showed others recordings of a QSO I had via Aurora.  Someone else is interested in my az/el rotor project because of an interest in orbital mechanics.  The moments to connect are out there, if you look for them.

Of course, it would be easier if I had a lot of EME gear at my disposal.  *cough cough* :)

Patrick
KB8DGC


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