You’ve probably all heard this at one time or another. A newly-licensed radio amateur gets on the local repeater and then either gets ignored completely or criticized for using a Baofeng or committing some minor operating error.
Can you think of a worse experience for a new ham? I’d bet that in some cases the new ham decides to give up on ham radio entirely. At the very least, it sours them on the ham radio experience.
We really need to be more encouraging to new hams and to hams that are either returning to the hobby or working on a new skill. Here’s an example. Yesterday, I worked a fellow doing a POTA activation. He was operating CW, and he made a couple of mistakes, but in the end, we completed the exchange, and I re-spotted him. A couple of minutes laters, I saw him re-spot himself with the message, “QRT…..gotta work on my ham-fisted CW.”
As I said, he made a couple of mistakes, but he wasn’t all that bad. I looked him up on QRZ.Com and emailed him:
Hi…
First, thanks for the POTA QSO.
Second, regarding your comment, “gotta work on my ham-fisted CW,” I’d say that you’re doing exactly the right thing. Getting on the air is the best practice, and if the others can’t deal with mistakes while you’re getting better, then the heck with them. :)
Keep on pounding brass.
73!
He replied:
Thank you so much for the encouragement (and the QSO 😊). It’s been a bit rough going for me the past few times activating on both sending and copying. I kind of get into my own head sometimes and your comments really help me remember that this is a CW journey and not a ‘light switch’. Thanks again for working me at a park and helping me get the on-air practice in!
How cool is that? I’m going to make a point of looking for him every time I load up https://pota.app and work him if I can. I’ll also note that he looked to be in his 30s, going by his picture on QRZ.Com. So, not only is he a relatively new CW op, he’s a relatively young CW op. So, there are two good reasons to encourage him.
Yesterday, I also worked a guy who told me that I was his first contact in 20 years! Whenever I work someone who has been off the air for a while, I welcome them back, noting, “WE NEED AS MNI CW OPS AS WE CAN MUSTER.” Immediately after the contact, I filled out a QSL card and commented, “Welcome back to CW. Please call me any time.”
It’s certainly better for everyone involved to be encouraging than it is to be critical. Criticism rarely helps, but patient encouragement, be it sending a QSL card or an uplifting email or a quietly-given piece of advice, can really make a difference. Please leave a comment below on how you encourage your fellow hams.
Jason VE3MAL says
I keep a list of friends on hamalert, usually specifying pota as the source, like this: https://ve3mal.locklin.science/assets/images/hamalert.png
Adding new hams to the list would be a great idea. I get an alert on my phone and computer -if I’m near a radio, I might be able to jump on and try to work them before they have any opportunity to get frustrated.
David Lateano says
That’s so awesome thank you for helping us newbies out!