How are we supposed to be welcomning new hams into the hobby if a young 12 year old ham can spend 1/2 hour calling in to a prominent repeater and not get acknoledged by anyone listening ?
Such was the case a couple nights ago. I was on the phone and had my radio tuned to a rather popular, prominent, local repeater at prime time. In the backgound I heard a young voice calling in to the repeater over and over again yet not one station acknowleged him. Yeah, i know, it could be that no licensed ham was listening at the time. But somehow, I highly doubt it. Finally after about a half hour I get off the phone and 5 minutes later I again hear the youngster call in. I grab my radio and acknowledge him. Turns out he's 12, recently licensed and he had some questions about VHF/UHF antennas. I answeed them the best I could and finally some other ham chimed in with some suggestions of some specific brands of antennas.
Again, last night the same thing happened. I hears the same young ham calling in with no acknowledgement until I grabbed my radio and acknowledged him. This time we talked about Hf antennas, power levels on HF, antenna tuners and hf stuff. Nobody else joined our QSO. I hope my suggestions were helpful to this youngster. Both times I welcomed him to the hobby and tried to give him encouragement.
Question I have is, we hear the mantra over and over that "we must bring new blood into the hobby". Great idea..,. But how is that going to happen if hams don't acknowledge young hams when they come on the radio ? What kind of encouragement is a young ham going to receive if he can call in on a popular local repeater at prime time and get no response ? I can't be out there all the time. Nor is my advice all the advice this youngster needs. He needs the support and advice of the amateur community to lend their knowledge and expertise.
I generally try and acknowledge young people and try and make them feel welcome as well as try and give them the best technical advice I can, I hope more hams out there do the same.