Gift to

c lasses are proving that it is
possible to learn the code at 13
wor ds per minute in almost the
same time as 5 wpm . . . if you
star t right out at tha t speed and
do n't horse around with the
slower speed. The lower speed
tends to enco urage people to
use the AA AL system of gradual
speed increase . . . which is one
of the worst sys tem s of learning
the co de ever devised and which
has lost us hundreds of th ousands
o f go od prospec t ive
ham s.
Which bring s me to the digital
license recently proposed in
OST. Phooey. If clu bs will set up
cl ass es, beat the bushes around
high schoo ls for impressio nable
youngsters in the 14-15 year age
bracke t, we'll have all the hams
we and our co untry need. Kids
that age are suckers for ham radio
... they are too young to realize
that they are being talked
into a li fe invol vemen t from
which they will never really escape
. Even if you told them
about it they haven't enough experience
to kick the habi t before
it becomes overpowering.
If we cut out everything below
the General license, it might
take a few weeks longer to graduat
e new hams, but we wou ld
end up wit h a lot more in the end
and be a lot happier. We might
get away from a lot of thi s
kerch unki ng a nd bad language...and
we might get a lot
more newcome rs into bui ld ing
and designing equipment. We
can use more experimenters.
Wha t do you think?
BALTIMORE
One of my th ree sc heduled
ta lks at hamfest s this year was
at Baltimore .. . and they sure
managed to pull a great crow d
for th at show . A good part of the
commercial exhibit area was
com pu ter-o riented ... som e­
th ing I'm seeing more and more
thes e days. In fact, at some
hamfests th e computer exhibits
outnumber the ham exhibits.
The best part of the ham fest
was the indoor fl ea mar ket ...
packed wit h good things and so
many hams pawing over the
stuff that it wa s difficult to even
get close to the better bargains.
The heavy flea-market attendance
seemed to detract from
the sale of ham gear by ham
dealers. I asked around late in
the ham fest to see how they
were doing on selli ng major
pieces of ham gear and fo und
th at they were mostl y doin g
busin ess with sma ll parts and
the ham rig s were going begging.
I th ink the money went for
parts and seco nd-hand gear thi s
time.
RICHLAND HAM FEST/
COMPUTERFEST
At last! Wa yne's name up in
lights! A bit tacky, as might be
expected, but definitely up there
fo r all to see. That' s show biz.
abo ut before the mountain blew
up.
Among the souveni rs laid on
me were pumi ce stones blown
out of th e mountain and picked
up 18 miles away, a bottle of
ash, a beautiful book on the
mountain with a day -by-day account
of the disaster, and a
bumper sticker saying, "Chicken
Little Was Rig ht .. . Mt . 51.
Helens, May 18th ."
Mary Lewis W7QGP, who has
been tryin g for some years to
g et a fa ir s hake f rom t he
League, was there . . . but I did
not see the League director for
the divi sion . I guess he was ju st
too busy to get to th e hamfest
and represe nt the League.
I hope that the full story of
Mary gets int o print. The Leagu e
seems to be absolutely set on
making sure that they never
have a woman direc tor , as some
dir ect ors have bra gged. The
AAAL does a lot of good thi ngs,
but when they stoop to underhanded
stuff such as they have
pull ed on Mary, few peop le in
the know have any respect for
them, I gather that director
Thurston stays in office by din t
of thi s skulduggery . ..a shame
on ama teur radio.
The computer-oriented exhibits
outnumbered the ham exhibits
by a wide ma rg in . . .
somethi ng whic h is happening
more and more at narnte st s lately.
Here we see a TAS-80 all
suited up in a custo m made box .
One of the Washingto n area
ham manufacturers is AEF, and
they were there showing their
lates t antennas. How about that
Tinker Toy portab le two-meter
quad?
The kids got a big kick out of
the computers. Here is a PET entertaining
one kid w hile a co uple
others are working on a TAs-BO
next to it.
I was not di smayed to see Instant
Software prominentl y on
display at one of the booth s.
Conside ring the remoteness
of the area, the tri-c lti es put on a
darned good ham fest in July. I
flew out to give a talk at the banquet
on ama teur radio and an af·
ternoon talk on computing. The
gossip at the ham fest wa s, of
co urse, about Mount St. Helens,
not very far away.They talked so
much about it th at I began to
wonder what everyo ne talked
Though An y was on di spl ay,
the clattering old machi ne didn't
get th e atten tion of the new
microcomputer-oriented units.
Thi s App le was kept busy all
day wit h kids at the helm . ..
here is a hangman program in
progres s.
73 Magazine. October, 1980 245