Hi all,
I just read the "new ham creed" thread, very interesting.
I've responded to some of the comments.
"if you heard someone splattering up and down the band on sideband, you politely broke in, told him about it, and generally the man thanked you for letting him know and made adjustments to fix the problem."
I have mixed emotions about this topic.
A few years ago, I criticized a ham about his signal on the air.
He said to me, "Trippy, you gonna come over here and fix it for me?"
That shut me up, real quick.
I've painfully learned ever since that day, if I was gonna criticize another ham for his/her stations performance, I better match my criticism with either telling him/her how to fix it, or, going over there and fixing it myself.
"these boys were loud, in other words, and often such stations are running pretty big amplifiers which put out a lot more than the legal limit, if you get my meaning,"
I get the meaning, but you don't know that, meaning, how much power was being used, so why did you even say it?
Unless you can prove that kind of statement, don't say it.
"I've seen them literally move off frequency, tell the station too close to their quiet channel to move, and if he does?  They all move down on top of him and talk as if he isn't there."
I completely agree with this part of the post!
What I would do in those situations, and have done it myself, is when I hear a station doing that, I record the event happening, and send it to the FCC.
I've gotten stations licenses taken away and I will continue to do it, when they deliberately get on a frequency that's being used, and start talking, without even seeing if the frequency is in use.  We need another Riley Hollingsworth in our hobby, really, really bad.
"Anyhow, they got to ragging on him because he wouldn't turn on his amp,"
Pretty soon, there will be a change in amateur radio.
Many hams are talking with the FCC about this very issue now, the issue of amps.
In ham radio, there should be no amps used on HF, everybody should have the 250 watt limit.
This will result in fair, and more civil, hf operation.
"100 to 180 foot towers,"
If I had my way, and could do it financially, I would love to buy a 180 foot tower for every ham, with antennas to go along with it, at least I can dream, right?
"I thought it was sort of funny he was pissing off the big boys with his weaker signal.  I believe he was doing it on purpose,"
I hope he was, and I don't blame him for it.  Like you all, I've been that weaker station, and hams with big amps hate those of us who don't have them.
"There used to be a group on 3.999 called
the 99ers who pretty much insisted you join them with an amp."
Well, the 99ers days are numbered, I can tell you that.
73,
Trippy, ac8s