Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. How about you?

[KJ3N]

We all know there's an ugly side to the hobby. How many here have had this happen to them, or have witnessed it?



He certainly has the General portion of 75m pegged.

[W3WN]

Someone buy that man a razor and make him use it. Please. Or at least a pair of scissors and a good trimmer (like a Wahl)

[X-Rated]

"People Who Don't Want Their Beliefs Laughed at Shouldn't Have Such Funny Beliefs" -AD5MB

[WX7P]

I've had similar experiences in my 30 years on the radio.

Actually, the last time it happened was when I got on 160 when I moved here. It was a group of 9-landers and they were the rudest people I had encountered in years. They the same shit, trying to jack me around asking snarky questions about Stanford etc. Needless to say, I didn't hang around.

There is a segment of the ham radio community that doesn't like newcomers, period. Our band segments are large enough that you can get away from those people if you so choose. I'm not a big fan of sitting on a frequency listening to a bunch of sociopaths mouth off at each other, so I don't do it. Who needs the aggravation?

One comment I would make about newbies is they should listen for a while before they transmit, so they can get a feel for the use of language etc. Hearing CB-speak on a repeater (unless is someone doing parody) can be annoying. I think I had my license for 9 months before I said anything on the air. I didn't want to make a fool out of myself. It doesn't take much to figure out how things work and what freqs to stay away from.

[KJ3N]

Someone buy that man a razor and make him use it. Please. Or at least a pair of scissors and a good trimmer (like a Wahl)

Thanks for not addressing the issue, Ron. I'm disappointed.

[X-Rated]

Janet hit the nail on the head. Learn the characteristics of the ham community before just jumping in there.

Anyone can bitch and bellyache about any community. They can display valid points and bring up real issues. I didn't listen to the whole thing so maybe he offered solutions. Get in there and change things if you don't like 'em. I am a horrible community organizer. I can't even get one person roiled up about an American kid being roughed up and taken to jail with no access to an attorney. There's no way I can change behaviors of those on the airwaves.

[NQ6U]

I never had anything like what he described happen to me but it did take a couple of weeks before someone finally came back to my call sign on any of the local repeaters. Once I joined a local ARC and people got to know me, things changed. Since then, I'm usually the first one to answer a call from someone who's obviously a newbie.

[X-Rated]

Well, anyone jumping on a repeater with a beard looking like that should expect whatever they get.

Seriously, I remember the first time I posted something on teh Zed. I had not been monitoring the exchanges on there and just jumped on one day and the exchanges were vile. I had never run into anything like that on the air. I was back off of there for literally years. I had made a comment about my callsign being Dubya Bush 5 Land and they went insane. They wanted to know if I would leave the country like Alec Baldwin said he would and crap like that.

On some of my first radio contacts, I asked people to QRS. I just had my Novice license and needed people to be a bit slower. Well they would crank up the speed and away they would go. No code copying apparatus or noting like that. I sat there dumbfounded. I copied lots after those first few days. I got my speed up and was able to make enjoyable contacts.

I listened to this guy the rest of the way through. He brings up some good points about being more friendly. That is good.

[WX7P]

I listened to this guy the rest of the way through. He brings up some good points about being more friendly. That is good.

I think the friendly thing is a good. I think the mistake made by some in our community is when they focus attention on the miscreants and the anti-social.

The zed was a toxic mess back then because they didn't make much of an effort to enforce the rules evenly. They seem to be a lot better about that now. I still don't go there unless someone links to here, because there are some people (actually about 10-15 active posters) over there whose opinions aren't worth even scanning for lulz.

[K0RGR]

I'm sorry, but there is a small amount of broken glass and dog crap on the beach of life. Learning not to step in it is an important part of learning to enjoy the beach.

When I hear one of these stories, and I do see a lot of them, I have to wonder what really happened. Here's a relative newbie who thinks he was dissed by some longer term hams. Clearly, he was upset by what he heard or thought he heard. You always have to remember that they can't really tell if you're smiling when you say something on the radio - and even less so when you are writing on a web site or using CW or data modes. Newbs often interpret things they hear as insult, when they are nothing of the kind. How many times have you heard someone complain that he was having his first CW QSO when the other guy called him a 'lid'. Minor investigation often shows that the other guy responded 'Solid Copy', which the newb received as So Lid.

The results of these kinds of things are often tragic. I worked with a guy whose whole family were hams. When he got his ticket, he bought a 2 meter rig and put it in his car, and embarked on a long trip. Somewhere in the middle of Nebraska, he got on a 'closed' repeater, and was chewed out by some &^%^$%^. As a result, he turned the radio off, never turned it back on, and let his licnse lapse. My first question is "why would anybody in his right mind discourage someone from getting on 2 meters anywhere near the state of Nebraska?". I've heard this kind of thing too, on 'private' repeaters out in the great wooly west, and in places where there are hundreds of repeaters, it doesn't hurt to politely ask intruders to go elsewhere - but sometimes repeater barons act like gods, and it would be easy to see why people would get discouraged in a hurry.

There is an unusual amount of broken glass and dog crap on 20 and 75 meter phone. I encourage newbs to find other outlets, and I hope the mentally challenged just stay where they are. I had another coworker who always wanted to get into ham radio. He went out and bought a receiver, and started listening. After a couple weeks, I asked him how the receiver was working, and got an earful. He said he'd tuned across 75 meters, and found so much profanity and insanity there that he sold the receiver. He didn't want anything like that in his house!

I don't answer 100% of the calls I hear on the repeater - I often have other things to do, and while a newb might find it interesting to talk to me 5 times in the same day, I rarely find the conversation that compelling. Still, I do feel something of an obligation to see that everybody has success on the radio of one kind or another. And, once in a while, I learn something new that is really useful. One of our newbs here recently introduced me to ninite.com - a very, very useful computer site. It lets you select and install a wide variety of commonly used software WITHOUT installing the crappola that often comes with it. It's fabulous for new computer setup!