[sdiy] Hamfests and Elders (was: Learning electronics now)

[R. D. Davis]

Quothe R J, from writings of Mon, Jul 18, 2005 at 05:08:01PM -0700:
> I'm 34 and just starting to get into the whole ham/radio scene.  Have  
> not been to a hamfest yet (am interested in going) but by the time I  

Great!  Don't wait, find the nearest hamfest and go... you'll be glad
that you did! :-)

> get around to it I may be 40.   So maybe people don't really start  
> going to hamfests until they are close to 40?  =)

No, many of us went to them as soon as we first learned of them.
Might it be fair to say that many of the younger people today would
rather sit around on their backsides and order things from the 'net
than get out and actually get some exercise while looking for great
finds at a hamfest?  At a hamfest, one can trade, barter and bargain
for merchandise (another possibly soon to be lost art!) rather than
handing over a credit card on the web and being bilked.  Hamfests are
great fun, and a great way to talk to people with common interests
(namely electronics).

Alas, some young'uns seem to have an obvious bias against older people
and listening to their elders, thus not learning much valuable
knowledge and being destined to make stupid mistakes as a result.
It's a pleasant experience to talk with older people at hamfests (and
elsewhere!), listen to some of their tales about working with
electronics, listening to explanations of how various pieces of
electronic equipment that one isn't familiar with work that they have
for sale, and to just shoot the breeze in general with them.  Lots of
interesting and useful knowledge can be obtained that way.  So what if
it might not be about digital electronics, over-clocking computers and
SMD parts.

By the way, being in my forties, I still feel young and very
inexperienced with electronics in comparison to many people at the
hamfests.

> I have a feeling though that the older generations just have more of  
> a sentimental connection to the radio than the younger generations  
> who grew up with a lot more TV.   I am actually one of the people who  

And for good reason.  Their involvement with radio, whether broadcast,
ham or short-wave, etc., involved more than just twiddling knobs to
change stations.  It involved building circuitry, calibrating
equipment, understanding electronics theory, morse code, etc. and
being able to use radio equipment for many vital purposes, such as
national defense.  Many built radio equipment from parts salvaged from
other equipment.  If you've ever used or built a tube radio set,
you'll probably understand this.  There's something very different
about listening to one than a transistor radio.

Also broadcast band radio, when one listened to radio shows like The
Shadow or the Jack Benny Show, etc., encouraged the use of one's
imagination, like books.  One had to paint pictures in one's mind of
scenes and places.  With television, one's mind merely acts like a
sponge, which doesn't do anyone any good.

> listening to radio instead for news etc.   This lead me eventually to  
> my interest in tube radios/hi-fi.  If I were still an active "TV  
> Addict" I doubt hamfest would even be be on my sonar screen.

See, as you've learned, TV sets numb brains. :-)

> More troubling than low hamfest attendance is the fact that our  
> society seems to be failing to sufficiently encourage young people to  
> go into the Engineering/Technology fields.  I have heard that less  
> are enrolling in Engineering College programs.   Outsourcing of our  
> Engineering and Technology jobs is not helping things at all.    

Well said!  That outsourcing, and also importing of labor, is
destroying many careers and career fields... not just engineering and
computer programming.  The problem is people want cheap products from
WallMart, etc. and don't care what the result of that is... meanwhile,
some countries, including the U.S., are losing their manufacturing
capabilities and self-sufficiency.  This is dangerous, and a far
bigger threat than terrorism from the middle east.... but certain
politically well-connected interests are profiting greatly from this
problem.

> Making matters worse is that many of the people (IMO) who do go to  
> engineering school seem to be doing it not because they love it but  
> because they "think" it would be a "good" thing to do... but you have  
> to have interest/passion to be successful in this field.  People who  
> are just doing it for the money will never develop the kind of  
> interest that might lead you to attend a hamfest.

True, and worse than that, as we're already seeing, it leads to poorly
engineered products that could be designed much better.  They have no
interest in their work and it's apparent.  Take the rotten engineering
of the almost new washing machine that I just pushed back into
place... every so often it stops spinning too quickly and the whole
machine moves several inches across the floor.  The old one never
did that, but the tub rusted out badly and no replacement tub could
be purchased for it... such a waste.

> If you get more kids interested in Engineering and Electronics you  
> will see a lot more people who get interested in radio... it's only  
> natural.

Hopefully most of the R.F. spectrum won't have been reallocated for
other purposes by then.  Of course, we could always go back to using
some powerful spark-gap transmitters... something that everyone in the
U.S. and elsewhere should have and know how to build. :-)

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