Quote:
Originally Posted by jr_tech
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I was first licensed at the age of 16 as WN8NHV in 1972. I had a decent station at that time but made just one contact (very long story). I upgraded to Technician just before my Novice ticket (license) expired, but had to move in 1975 and start over again. Twenty-seven years later, here we go again, as I had to move yet a third time (again, long story and OT). Now I am 64 years old, live in an apartment, and am more or less stuck with operating 2 meter FM (I am a member of a local ham club which has a repeater, N8BC/R, 147.81-21). I had an Echolink setup for quite a while, but my computer broke down. The person who repaired it erased the hard drive, including my Echolink program (I haven't been able to reinstall that software yet for lack of a master password), so now I am, again, stuck on 2m indefinitely, using a 1.5-watt HT. I still have my HF rig (an Icom IC-725), but cannot use it due to lease restrictions (cannot erect a decent antenna for the radio), and I am in no position to move to a house by virtue of living on a fixed income.
Oh well, I guess I should be thankful I can still operate 2m on the local repeater, but to be perfectly honest, I miss my HF station and all the contacts I made when I had it (I came very close to working all 50 states at my former location, a suburb of Cleveland).
As far as ham radio's future goes, well, the fact is things have changed, drastically, since I started in the hobby 48 years ago, and will continue to change as time goes on. I will not say the hobby will eventually disappear (I honestly don't believe it will, with some 600,000 licensed amateurs in the US alone), but I will admit it is nothing like what it was when I started. This is the age of the Internet, and more young people are communicating using that than ever will on the radio again. I am reminded of this time and time again when I try to find someone to talk to on the local repeater. I can say over and over again that I am listening on the repeater, but I get very few (if any) replies, except on the 2-meter ragchew net my club has on Thursday nights. Another problem is that I do not know any amateurs in my town, despite knowing that one such amateur lives about a block away and will not have anything to do with me--why, I may never know, as I never said or did anything (that I know of, anyway) to cause him to ignore me on the air. I cannot attend the meetings of the radio club to which I belong and of which I have been a member since 1987 because I do not drive, and the local bus line does not operate late at night (the club's meetings often last until 10 PM or later).
I am not at my wits' end (yet) over this, but the issue does bother me, and I wish there were some way I could get to my club's meetings once in a while. No one in the club is willing to take me because, as one club member recently told me, my membership in the club does not allow for that. I believe this is very unfair, as I am sure there are club members older than myself who do not drive and have no other way of getting to the meetings.
I will not end my membership in the club because of this issue, but the fact remains I feel very left out because I have no way to get to the meetings. I don't know very many people here where I live (this is a village of about 3100 population) and feel I could get to know a few folks if I could only get to my club's meetings.
All of which sometimes makes me wonder why I am still "spinning my wheels" on 2m after years and decades of being able to make worldwide contacts on HF, before having to give up my HF station when I moved. The only reason I can come up with for staying with the hobby is that I went to far too much trouble and effort to get my license 48 years ago. If I could give up this apartment and move to a house, things would be different, I'm sure, but since I will be in this place probably most of the rest of my life, I am stuck on 2m and Echolink, the latter, again (!), if I can ever get the password for the application needed for access to the system.
73,