I read Ed's comments in the opinion column with considerable interest, since they echo some of the same sentiments I've been having as of late concerning Amateur Radio. I'm very troubled by the state of the service, and there's some really obvious things wrong. However, a lot of the problem here really lies with a good number of the operators out there who insist...no, make that _demand_...that things remain so much the same in this that it has no appeal whatsoever to anyone who's just giving ham radio a cursory glance. Or worse, that things happen at their convenience, with changes in ham radio apparently being viewed as 'inconvenient' to them.

As an example, a couple of weeks ago I, my personal assistant (who also holds his ticket as KB9UWX), and a techno producer friend of mine who was and is very keen on getting his tech license attended a hamfest just south of Chicago. Big event, too...lots of fleas in the market, several sizable dealers. And _no_ VE sessions. None. Zippo. At a big hamfest. Now...this, to me, says a lot. It says a lot that's _bad_, basically giving the finger to anyone who might've attended...like my friend...who had a keen interest in getting into the hobby. Reason given? Oh...supposedly the rationale was that only a few people had shown up for VE sessions in the past, and this was near Chicago so there's lots of VE sessions, blah blah [insert lame excuse here]. Folksies...if you're a VE, your are the _gateway_ for people in this field. You're the way in, and you're the way up. This is what you volunteered to do, and something that's supposed to be important to you in Amateur Radio. If just _one_ person wants to take that no-code tech...yeah, yeah, it's only _one_ of those losers who'll never pick up a J-38, I know whachoore thinkin'...you're supposed to be there, ready to go, with those #2 pencils in hand. At this point in time where the average age of hams is in their _sixties_ and the hobby is in a slow decline in numbers, you should definitely care enough to get more people into it. But that's not all, nosirrahh...

No, another thing comes to mind. A recent club meeting, in this case. Now, here's something that is open to all area hams, people're encouraged to attend and get involved with the local community, hm? Well, how involved would _you_ want to get if much of the meeting involved itself with some old-timer squabbling over how the club's FD operations are to be run and rehashing 20+ year old politics that you don't give a rat's about? Yep, let's attract young fresh faces into Amateur Radio by having a bunch of people kvetch about crap from back during the Coolidge administration that was going on in the club. This is why I piled my cash into some expensive box of circuits? I somehow don't think so. This was really an egregious display of nothing attractive whatsoever, and if _I_ was the one suggesting to new ops to show up and check out the club, I'd feel embarassed as hell at how my hobby was representing itself.

Or let's take the old-timers who insist on things in Amateur Radio staying as restrictive as possible. Nah, restructuring won't work if you run the code speed _down_...let's take 'em up to 35 WPM, just like those commercial circuits, right? Oh, wait...they don't run those anymore. Oops. Well, let's find a way to make things as difficult as possible for those codeless cockroaches, right? Don't let them onto the coveted real estate of HF! After all, that's the holy of holies of Amateur Radio, and must be protected by as restrictive a set of operating policies as possible! Why, I remember back during the days of Chester A. Arthur when we had to build our transceivers out of chewing gum foil and dirt...we...[insert snoring noise here]. Now...to the defense of some people in the field, there _are_ some very good older ops out there who're very much behind helping other, newer and younger people...as well as the service...go forward. They deserve big-up respects, and from me, they get 'em. My beef here, though, is those ops who, because of positions of supposed worth through concepts like 'seniority' and 'tradition', hold the Amateur Radio service and those entering its early-stage ranks _back_. I've watched this nonsense for my 12+ years in ham radio, and even seen it from the FCC itself back when they were adminning the tests themselves back in the 'good old days'...which is when I attempted my novice tests for the first couple of times. People doing this sort of disservice to Amateur Radio need to unplug their sets, sell or give them to someone who cares for the hobby, and quit being an impediment to progress and growth. Blunt, but very true.

Selling ham radio is not hard. All you need to do is really show off what you can do to/with it. And yeah, that means not setting up some dull cut-n-dried affair. Getting back to that local club's FD effort...now, I'd been wanting to do a Field Day again for some time. It'd been a while since my last, back in the late 80s. But not with that club, nossirree. Instead, some of the hams who weren't down with the regimented and structured plan behind that FD effort were cooking up another one. Objective: not to get the biggest score, but to just work and _enjoy_ the event. And you can guess where I was that weekend. And it strikes me that what we present as Amateur Radio doesn't look enjoyable. It's always done up in a very poindexterish, science-fair-oid getup, the sort of thing cooked up by someone who probably got daily wedgies to in school. If there were a way to make what we were doing look like _actual fun_...imagine that, huh?...maybe other people would catch what we enjoy about the hobby. FD this year, with the Solar Flux at 200+, was fun...and to be honest, I wish we'd had our effort in some public place so people could've seen all of us really pushing to get those contacts in. But even though we didn't do that (we were using a nice electrically-quiet rural location that just happened to come complete with a couple of _miles_ of ground radials under it...pass _that_ up, if you can!), this doesn't mean that others shouldn't. Let people see what we do on the one day of the year where we really kick the bands open and show what we can accomplish, and do it with some zest to the effort.

Also, use your local situations to your advantage. Around here, ham radio is used...not as much as it perhaps should be, but that's due to someone who...well, we went there, ok?...is used for tornado spotting. Pretty essential stuff 'round these parts. Well, sadly, not enough mention is made of the fact that that's done here. If it was, think that'd attract more people into the service? Bet! That's how and why my P.A. got his ticket, the day after I was listening to the local ESDA repeater and when I knew where the storm over the city was dropping funnels. He saw right away just what a useful thing Amateur Radio was, and from that inceptive point, he's also now getting into simplex DX on 2M (he probably got that from me) plus he's about to push that no-code tech, if he has his way, out on past tech-plus. He's bucking for advanced, actually. And this all in 2 months time. Point here being: if you show what ham radio means to your town, your people, that sort of impact...people _will_ connect up with what ham radio might mean for _them_.

And that's what you're trying to 'sell'...what people can get out of this for themselves. Be that personal communication, simple enjoyment, or the various little thrills that one tends to uncover in various corners of the service. It can be done. It might take getting a few people to chill out and get out of the way...but it can be done. And it'll certainly take people actually working _for_ Amateur Radio, instead of trying to 'preserve' some archaic notion of what the service is 'supposed to be'. Times change. Technology changes. And most importantly, _people_ change. And if ham radio's going to be around as this goes on, it's got to change right along with that.

In closing, I really want to hand it to Ed Mitchell for bringing up this...well, it's not a comfy topic with a lot of hams. But it's one that needs to be broached. I will note that I think the license restructuring is one right step in getting Amateur Radio on track again into this next century. But you can restructure the license tiers from now 'til hell freezes over, and it won't help a bit until the _people_ who make up Amateur Radio start looking at their own actions in the service, and whether they're helping...or hindering...what should be an important, vital, and above all enjoyable thing. This is not some Ivory Tower, peeps. And it's not supposed to be some ardurous chore, either. If you think otherwise, even inadvertantly, then find some other hobby to ruin. Nuff said!