you have a great point about the social media thing...the joke goes that 
women used to say to guys "hey, my eyes are up here" and now it's "hey, look 
at me not your phone"
I tend to try and cashae social media interaction into real life social 
situations as much as is possible.  In otherwords, I use social media to 
plan get togethers and events with friends...rather than using facebook or 
twitter as the main source of my socialization.


73
Colin, V A6BKX





-----Original Message----- 
From: Jim Gammon
Sent: Monday, July 13, 2015 1:34 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: how the hobby has changed in 30 years Etc.

Hi Colin, first, your ideas and thoughts as usual, are very well
stated.  Maybe your sticky notes aren't sticky enough so they
never got turned in.  Seriously though, when I was reading your
thoughts, it occurred to me that, like ham radio, the animal
groups have also been declining over time.  By Animal groups, I
mean the Lions, Elks, Moose, and so-on are or seem to all be
struggling to keep their numbers up.  Don't know about the rotary
and siroptimists, but I think that many people, especially young
ones, has been getting into the social media stuff and don't feel
the same need for direct interaction like meetings etc.  Maybe
this portends some major underlying social change because of
technology, maybe even polarization, especially in the US.  I
belong to two ham clubs here.  One, has a breakfast every fourth
Saturday of the month which usually gets about 20 to 25 hams and
their significant others, maybe some wannabees.  The other club
has a Friday evening meeting that usually has a tech lecture most
months  or auction a couple times a year.  I have not gone to
that usuY for lack of a reade but I think it's fairly well
attended.  I don't have a sense of the numbers in each club, but
another local club seems to be cranking out new hams some of whom
I have heard and talked too on VHF.  Wish I had the secret
solution for you, and us in general.  I don't think free pizza
and beer would even encourage folks for too long.
Speaking of HF, I got my ALS600 fired up and am not using any
antenna tuner in line since I found out the Ldg AT600 Pro II auto
tuner is just plain Not Blind friendly, even LDG wrote me about
that.  Now I gotta return the thing to HRO hoping they will give
me back most of the $338  I spent on it.  Hope we can talk on HF,
bands permitting, one of these days.  I could barely hear Lloyd
yesterday and called numerous times using the amp never to be
heard.  Kind of disappointing but 20 meters was pretty bad.  Well
enough for now, 73, Jim WA6EKS