As the sun slowly sinks in the west here in Luddite Junction, I have thoughts, and not being a very smart person, I often translate those thoughts into words and that’s usually where the trouble begins. For example, I have a very good friend who is also a radio enthusiast. We had a discussion recently about too much tech that led him to wonder, “would we be better off with 50K hams who knew what the hell they were doing and were active or 800K occasional appliance operators?”

Troublemaker that I am, I thought that a good question. Permit me to add a little more context to the noodling and thinking that led to this point.

Like the seasonal flu, new digital audio codecs and methods appear each year and I believe that sort of innovation to be a good thing. Especially since it’s almost always a voice thing and my radio interests are mostly non-voice things. But this latest iteration has got a lot of folks excited, talking, and even taking a test drive with the new technology. Good, right? Well, I thought so, but then I read this in a recent mail list thread from one excited evangelist of this new method encouraging its adoption:

“Do not be put off by the technical nature of the computing involved. Everything works correctly, the development team is very professional.”

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain is no way to approach the world of amateur radio, in my opinion. (See, how I added that “in my opinion”? My lawyer says that’s what we call weasel words and he wants me to use them liberally). Of course having one zealot mis-speak his enthusiasm is no reason to condemn the entire software project, but it might speak to the tech savvy of those expected to just double-click to install it, no worries, no need to understand it, just partake of the gooey goodness!

Pointless Anecdote: A pilot was transporting a full plane load of ham radio operators one day. As they were about to fly over one side of the Grand Canyon he announced, “if all the hams who honestly don’t understand the software that now runs their entire amateur radio station would move to the left side of the plane, the plane will tip over that way so don’t do that!”

I’m telling you, the hobby has evolved to the point where there is simply too much tech for most hams to grasp. These days it’s all software, hidden in codes that too few understand. And some of us here in Luddite Junction don’t see that as a good thing. Not at all. But change is coming…