Re: [IRCA] Semi-OT, maybe not - Poll question

[Michael Hawkins <downsized99@xxxxxxxxx>]

I have never had any interest in being a ham or using a CB (pardon the link), as I am a listener.  If they want to refer to a sub-hobby, I would think that those who get the license and start broadcasting on an amateur band are in the sub-hobby category, because they took listening a step further.  Every ham listens.  Some listeners talk.
   
  Mike Hawkins

cafe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
  I had an e-mail from an Amateur Radio operator
today who refered to SWL/DXing as an interesting
"Sub-Hobby" of Ham Radio.

Now - I am sure to open up a can of worms
and I am sure this issue has been discussed to
death... but.

I have been SWL/DXing since 1971 -- In 1973 I studied
for the Canadian Amateur ticket (while attending the
occasional local Ham radio club meetings) and found
the attitude of some of the young, newer Hams quite
off-putting. Their attitude was pretty much: "You are
either a Ham or a CBer.
SWL/DXers are either failed hams or people that just
do not have what it takes to be hams."

This statement so resonated with me way back in the
mid-seventies that I decided that I could not be
bothered with this kind of elitist claptrap.

Truth be told, every other Amateur radio operator
over the age of about 25 had quite a different
attitude -- more of a nurturing quality but still
holding to the "Every DXer/SWL will ONE DAY become a HAM..."

Funny how this still resonates with me - my baggage I guess. :-)

Anyhow - my question is: Do Amateur radio ops and SWL/DXers still
feel that Ham radio is a natural progression of a DXer/SWLs career?

I have been listening to everything from MW Dx to Ham radio and Utes
for over 30 years and I have never had any desire to "get on the air"
and talk to anyone.

Truth be told, I will, at some point get an Amateur ticket
if only to get more involved in my Provinces emergency program.


--
Colin Newell
Editor-Creator www.coffeecrew.com | www.dxer.ca
Webmaster - www.bobharris.com

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