eric wrote:What about the older hams on 75 meters that hold Advanced and the holy of holy 20 WPM Extra tickets? I have listened into several QSOs that sounded worse than the trype on 11 meters and some of them have been hams for YEARS! So dont lump the no coders and the slow coders into one category.
p.s. most of my hamming is about 75% listening and 25% actual talking.
Yes Eric, there are indeed poor operators among all classes of license. Still, by and large the very type stuff I am talking about is predominantly CB spawned. An anecdote here and there aside. It has grown exponentially as the new breed CBers swept into the ham bands IMHO. As opposed to the initial ham surge in the 1960s from the LICENSED Citizen's Band. (Do you remember that?).
Perhaps the degradation has spread and affected borderline operators. What had been totally unacceptable is now mainstream in many cases.
No, I do not look down my nose at anyone, especially based on license class.If they act like they are still on 11 meters however..?
If I were concerned with that I wouldn't have kept my advanced call when the Extra was issued.
I listen too. Since 1959. I have seen the erosion of the ham bands and the linking is pretty close to the timing of lowered standards,code being one of them. Much of what I am hearing is from ops with an unmistakable CB background. That is no where near saying every ham with a CB background is part of the problem.
Twenty years ago you could check in to any QSO on HF phone bands using CW. Try that now and all you get are CB style comments or claims of being QRMed or CB style name calling "Take that bleepity bleep on down to the code band,. This is the phone band you idiot".
CW ops frequently checked in to the DB net and always had a polite welcome .
Twenty years ago you would feel free to allow an 11 year old YL to listen in on 75 meters. Not so today. I can no longer encourage youngsters to take up HF amateur radio and will not. Thanks not entirely but in large part to the continual lowering of the bar.
K0PD's comments regarding licensed CB are spot-on.
In the early days of CB licenses and call signs were a requirement. The CB community was very effective at policing itself. There were probably more CB clubs than Ham clubs at one time.
CB ops migrated very seamlessly into the ham bands in large numbers. (After passing the tests). The operating styles of the CB band at that time were very close to the amateur radio model already established.
Not so much about "code-no code" as about lowered standards .
There are many parallels between Ham and CB radio regarding lowered standards .
You may feel otherwise ,so be it.
Kr4ey,
I had something else in mind with the phone number.