Eric,

I've found the hobby, over the last 47 years of being a ham, to have become 
much as you described.  I'm in Denver.  Three years ago, I literally had 5 
different hams offer to help me with towers and antennas when I got on the 
air with my Icom 7000 and not one of them, although I contacted them via 
email after their offers of help, or talked with them on 2 meters, never 
showed up and never made any appointments to come over.  I have a ham friend 
in a wheelchair with a short tower and a quad who needs minimal assistance, 
is a member of more than one ham club in Denver, and he calls me to try and 
scare up some limited help because he faces the same problem.  I can't climb 
any longer since my spinal surgery three years ago but my 29 year old son 
and his cousin help do tower climbing and assembling of antennas.  When I 
was 14 years old and living in Omaha, Nebraska, hams bent over backwards to 
help out and I never had a problem getting help.  We have over 700,000 hams 
in this country now and getting help is worse than I've ever seen it.  As a 
kid, we only had 150,000 American hams and help was abundant.

Phil.
K0NX




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Eric Clegg" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2011 4:46 PM
Subject: Sighted Hams In Sacramento Not Really Helpful


> Hello listers,
>
> Here is my rant for the year.
>
> I find sighted ham radio operators here in the Sacramento area totally
> unhelpful.
>
> I have four portable antennas that I'd like help assembling. The smaller 
> and
> larger Alexloop magnetic loop antennas. The Buddistick antenna and the
> Ventenna, HFP antenna.
>
> I'd love to get a Kenwood TMV-71A but I have no sighted help hooking up 
> the
> power supply to the rig. I have a 50% chance of hooking it up backwards 
> and
> blowing up the rig as I did with an Astron 2 meter rig many years ago.
>
> The same goes for my Icom IC703 Plus. When I was on a trip recently to
> Harrisburg, PA the stupid people from the TSA at the airport closed my 
> power
> cord that goes to the Astron power supply in the suitcase cutting 
> completely
> one side of the fused power cord. I bought a new cord from Universal Radio
> but the same as above in the Kenwood applies. No sighted help to hook the
> cord to the Astron power supply.
>
> Since the Pacigficon convention my Yaesu FT817ND has gone nuts.
>
> It will not take some frequencies that I send it with the Radio Mate 
> keypad.
>
> I don't know if the radio needs a complete reset or there is some sort of
> fault in the keypad itself.
>
> I'd also like some help ssetting up the menus on the Icom IC703 Plus. For
> instance I can't speed up the speech board or set it to a higher volume.
>
> I'm tempted to try the millennium qsyer on the Yaesu but am reluctant to 
> do
> so because I might not be able to set it up to operate with the IC703 Plus
> again .
>
> So I have all this qrp junk that's barely operable.
>
> The only rig I have with some hope is a Kenwood TS480SAT. I have two high
> power shortened dipoles for 20 meters on my balcony which have high swr.
>
> Again no help with anyone with an antenna analyzer.
>
> I have yet to make a contact with this rig on any band.
>
> In summary, I'm disappointed in general with the Sacramento ham community.
> It would probably gtake an hour of someone's time to come over and fix my
> problems adjust radio menus and get me properly on the air.
>
> The ARRL is nothing but a stupid self-serving non-helpful organization. 
> Why
> did I join as a life member?
>
> I hope this is not the case for all parts of the country for general ham
> radio helpfulness.
>
> If it is, our hobby is truly in trouble.
>
> I would welcome suggestions.
>
> Merry Crhistmas from a browned off ham radio operator.
>
> 73,
>
> Eric
>
> KU3I
>
>
>
>
>