View Full Version : Rudeness on the air
w6pea
03-22-2008, 01:30 AM
Earlier today I was in my mobile and talking to a young Ham.....12 years old. He tested last week end and passed his Tech & Gen. I was at the VE site. Anyway to make long story short, there was a net starting in a couple of minutes and this old fart (I'm being polite) says you guys have run into our net time and unless you are have emergency communications it's time for you to clear the air.
Well I usually take part in that net, but you can rest assured I will no longer take part. What a good impression this old Ham gave to a youngster. :confused: I thought Ham radio freq. were open to all licensed operators. He could have at least invited the youngster to join in the net. All these guys do is talk about their aches and pains anyway:rolleyes:
I agree the old guy could have handled it differently, like welcome to Ham radio we are about to start a net and explain what a net is and what this net does. I have also run into these rude net good old boys who some how think the frequency is their private freq. Nets can be very useful and great training when they are run right but when it becomes just a bunch of rude good old boys net then it does nothing but harm for the whole Ham radio hobby. I hope the young Ham didn't take it personally and gets in there and keeps on having fun.
wa8yxm
03-22-2008, 06:09 AM
I do have one scheduled net I participate in. A few nights ago we must of had half a dozen folks "Calling Through" during our pre-net conference.
We simply ask them if they wish to join the net. Heck, some do.
The ones I complain about are when we are sitting there in pre-net and have been for a while and they fire up, oh say 1KC away (I know where they are at because I"ve got a PSK waterfall display running and it spots signals real well) and when one of our net members qsy's the KC and listens they are complaining about US.. I mean, one of the rules of Ham radio is 1st come 1st serve in most cases. And this is one of those cases
Radio
03-22-2008, 07:37 AM
I agree the old guy could have handled it differently, like welcome to Ham radio we are about to start a net and explain what a net is and what this net does.
That's the way we would have handled it with our local radio club...of course in our case the people who run the club, and thus the net, are also the VE team. The old 80/20 rule: 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people.
Not such a great intro to radio for the youngster...I join in on so many nets, but have never heard any rude remarks like that. Just goes to show the mentality of some operators out there. Evidently, the don't remember why we got into ham radio.
I have run into many rude people.
Just spin the dial because is they are rude then aggression follows and it does nobody any good.
Now, if he's local and I can get to him I have been known to educate a few.
A lot of these people are really loud mouths until you face them up close and personal.
It's a shame that the youngster had to get all this right up front buy maybe it's better that way.
TXiceman
03-24-2008, 10:14 PM
Yep, there are definitely some crusty old guys on that have all day to be on the air and they hit several nets. They are on so often that they begin to feel that they own the frequency.
Common courtesy would be to tell the people on frequency that there is NORMALLY a net on this frequency and ask how much longer they would be in a QSO or if you could just make a brief call to a net member and tell him to move or or down a few KHz.
If you are not talking about much you can offer to move off frequency. The amateur frequencies do not belong to a specific group, so we should all try to work together.
I have had net fire up on a QSO with linears and they make a big deal out of the fact that the weak stations can't talk over them.
Ken
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