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Hey older hammies, what's with the attitude???

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loosecannon

Sr. Member
Mar 9, 2006
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I don't usually post up here, but this situation has put my shorts in a bunch.

What i'm about to describe has happened to four different individuals, in four different locales, all this year.
One of these people is me.

All four of us experienced the exact same thing.
I will use my own experience, but know that it is the same experience of the other three people.

I have been getting ready to get re-licensed soon, and decided to try going to a local ham meeting in order to get to know how things work as well as the people there.

I am on the younger side of the radio hobby (mid 40's), and am no slouch when it comes to talking radio.
i also happen to be a very friendly and personable person (as are the others who experienced this).

What i experienced in this ham meeting almost made me reconsider getting re-licensed.
It seemed as if every ham over 50 was not only uninterested in talking to me about anything, but made it clear that i was eavesdropping on their private conversation and wasn't welcome.

It's not like im some spring chicken CBer with a mohawk and B.O. I look and sound very similar to everyone that was at the meeting.

I ended up talking with two of the younger guys there who were about my age if not a bit younger.
they were there to prep for getting their license because they were into hiking and camping.
they weren't really that interested in the radio part yet, but wanted to be.

Upon bringing up how the older guys acted towards me, they nodded and said they had been snubbed also.

It was like there were two groups in that meeting. one full of old guys who have known eachother for many years, and us younger guys just trying to make conversation with whoever was around.

This kind of attitude was the exact reason i let my license expire 30 years ago! all i got was snobbery when i tried to talk to the older hams. WTF guys???


As i said, this is basically the same experience that the three others i know had. all this year.

I really thought it might be different now that i've grown up, but nope, same old jerks, just different names.

my questions to you older hams are:

Are you aware that you come across this way?

Do you act like this in non-ham social engagements?

Do you ever bring this subject up in meetings?


before anyone answers that it's just normal age difference, two of the people that this happened to are 60+ years old.

to us, it seems like you just want to hang out with the people you already know, and have forgotten that ham radio is about meeting new people and talking to them.

I'm not looking for consolation here, i am just hoping that a few of you are willing to look inside yourselves and ask if you might be part of the reason your ham clubs suck.
LC
 

I'm not that way. I'll help any body that ask. I have been snobbed on the air as well.
I had a couple of jerks intentionally screw up a once in a life time chance for a QSO while I was on the road traveling.
A lot of people are just a$$holes and act that way to the "New guys" with no rhyme or reason.
HAMMIES? Come on now.
 
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When I was a teenager on the ham bands the old farts gave us young punks a hard time. We got tired of it and started our own ham club, the "Rotten Radio Club".

The name is a nod to editorials in QST written by Hiram Percy Maxim in the 1930s.

50 years later, most of us are still active on the ham bands. But now we're the old farts. I say we need more young folks on the air, not fewer.

I guess some things just never change.

73
 
I was treated the same way by a bunch of classic car guys. I was also treated the same way by a bunch of remote control airplane guys. I was also treated the same way by................Every group has assholes that stick together. Amateur radio is not unique in this.Time to get over it and move on.
Do tell about this classic car adventure...
 
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been there done that. same crap here in n.y they only want to talk to each other. your irrelevant. so after i let my license expire. now im starting to lean towards ham radio again. if it has not changed why bother.
 
I have never been to a club meeting, but it doesn't seem like that around here. There are quite a few newer guys under 25. It seems like a lot of the older guys are leaning on the new hams with the new technology. It's probably just that people are much nicer and more accepting around here.
 
Don’t broad-brush all the older folks. There’s always a few of us younger brains attached to old bodies. Don’t turn away, seek them out and try to increase your generation within the club. My experience with the VFW typifies the attitude you’re talking about. For the most part, young Vietnam vets back in the 70’s were not welcomed into their “old man’s drinking club”. Most of us learned from that experience, and things changed over time. Now we are the old farts, and I’ll be dammed if I can find any of us treating the younger vets in the same offish way. At least at the VFW’s in our area, the drinking aspect has also been largely averted and replaced with family activities, wives and children. One note about women, they’re usually at the forefront of making everyone feel welcome. IMO, clubs need more of them to be involved.
 
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