The ARRL, its Directors and Section Managers are totally unresponsive to the membership! Old news or new? Both! This was a regular topic of Wayne Green's "73 Amateur Radio" magazine.

If you scan the old Amateur Radio magazines, especially "73" magazine, you'll see the same complaints being voiced back in the 1960's that you hear today.

Actually, after reading though about 50 issues of 73, CQ and QST from the 60's, the only thing that has changed is the technology. Amateur Radio operators, and the things they are interested in and complain about, haven't really changed at all.

Having trouble energizing your club? Don't worry! It seems that this has been a problem since the Amateur Radio club was invented.

Bad manners on the air? Looking at today's online forums, you might think this is a recent problem directly connected to the no-code license. Nope! Since there was "air", there appears to have been bad manners on it. Well, at least since there was "air" and a "microphone". "Incentive licensing" was the "no code" issue of yesteryear.

One thing I noticed from the 1960's was the way women were "subliminally" (is that a word?) excluded from the hobby. I draw this opinion from articles and ads that reference a certain piece of equipment for "the VHF man", or an article solving a problem for "the SSB man", and so on.

Think "appliance operators" were born yesterday? No way! Even in the 1960's there were discussions about the need for, and the prevalence of, home-brewing Amateur Radio gear. Those that couldn't build or repair anything were called "appliance operators". These days, I would guess 99% of hams are "appliance operators" if we're expected to build transmitting and receiving equipment.

Tower restrictions. Definitely getting worse, but not anything new.

No, ladies and gentlemen, nothing about the human element has changed at all. How we see ourselves, how we want others to see us, how we think others should operate, how we think the government should see and respond to us, and the value that the public should place on our "emergency capabilities" has not changed at all.

73,

WF5TX