Hello,
I recently rejoined this list after having set my mail off for a while and
later finding that I had been unsubscribed (probably due a quirk in some
mail program).

I may have missed much of this discussion, but it would be interesting to
hear what draws a newbie to hamradio.  I'm more in the 44-year club, so my
comments aren't really relevant to the future of the hobby.  For me, the
appeal of amateur radio was and still in the unpredictability of long
distance communications.  You put up your antenna, fire up the rig and
never know what you are going to hear on the air.

For many hams, the emergency service aspects provide them with a sense of
purpose.  Living here in the U.S with our plethora of communications
services, cell phones and internet caffees, the value of traffic nets,
emergency stations and the like needs to be questioned.  Of course, hams
can and I suppose do play a more significant role in remote areas of the
world without police and fire departments on every other street corner.

Its fun to express our thoughts on a hobby which we have all come to love
in one way or another.  But it will be left to someone else to write the
next installment 44 years hence.

73
chris w1gm