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Post by Jackie Bosworth on Nov 3, 2006 17:29:04 GMT
Have you ever come accross abuse of any kind on the radio? Someone mentioned to me recently that they'd had enough of radio because they were treated badly by male hams on the radio. They were keying up over her and refused to let her in on the conversations and such.
To be honest, I have never had any. Been female, for me, has actually been a good thing. Most of the time in competitions I always get people coming back to me, because they don't hear that many women on.
I have had a few people come on the board and make a post saying that we shouldn't have this website going. That if they made one just for men we would call it sexism.
But as I pointed out to them, this forum isn't just for women, but is to encourage women on to the radio and just give us a general place to chat.
But had anyone else had any bad experiences??
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Post by Renae/k9do on Nov 3, 2006 19:26:11 GMT
I have never had a bad expierence.
I have never come across any female operators when I have been on. I generally dont hear women. (on HF)
I like to do DX and I find that the men have always been nice to me.
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Post by Maureen on Nov 6, 2006 18:37:04 GMT
We have often had problems when running YL Nets! Ask any BYLARA Member who used to go on the morning nets. We had one OM who recorded what we were saying then played it back over the air on top of us. there were those who objected to what they saw as YL-omly Nets but then there are those who seem to object to neys in general. People often tumed up over us, etc. All this was on 40m in the mornings so it was presumably people in G-land who were causing us bother. A number of YL's stopped joining the Nets because of it. When operating as an individual or in the IOTA Contest iot was the opposite. Lots of ON's wanted YL Contacts to gain Awards!
Maureen
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Post by Jackie Bosworth on Nov 6, 2006 19:32:25 GMT
That's such a shame isn't it. As for the guy who recorded and played back, he mustn't have had any kind of life if he had time for such anticts
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Post by Renae/k9do on Nov 6, 2006 20:09:01 GMT
That's such a shame isn't it. As for the guy who recorded and played back, he mustn't have had any kind of life if he had time for such anticts I agree! I am glad that I never came across that!
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Post by mm3xgp on Nov 6, 2006 21:13:24 GMT
From a male foundation licence point of view I welcome ladies on radio as we have woman working with radio in all aspects now (ie) emergancy radio control rooms,air-traffic control centres,radio broadcasting,radio operators during wars about 2000 women worked on ULTRA - the group at Bletchley Park which decoded enemy messages, but some males think woman dont play a part in radio well in my mind if the woman can do all this then why not Ham radio as i have come accross some narrow minded males with regards m3 callsigns saying oh heres someone who got there licence via a cornflake packet and sayings like that.
May i add i have been intrested in radio as a swl for over 27yrs but could not get my head around the morse code so never went further in my quest for a ham licence untill the new m3 foundation came about do`s this mean iam less entitled than someone who was born with a G5RV as a ambilical cord. The few who moan about females and m3`s coming into radio need to relise that there all getting old and we need to encourage new people into ham radio be it female,children whoever its one world we live in not just a male world or old timers zone
Gordon
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Post by Renae/k9do on Nov 6, 2006 21:19:28 GMT
The few who moan about females and m3`s coming into radio need to relise that there all getting old and we need to encourage new people into ham radio be it female,children whoever its one world we live in not just a male world or old timers zone Gordon I have heard people like that where they don't want to talk with someone who has a newer call sign. It is a shame that some people feel they have to be that way.
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Post by Maureen on Nov 7, 2006 21:59:23 GMT
Hi gordon
I did once hear a G4 (OM) saying he would NEVER talk to an M3 - I was furious and just had to but in and tell him so! Good on you for finally getting there. As you can tell from my Callsign I did eventually get through the Morse Test (first time, even!!) but it was only a means to an end. I never use it I'm afraid. When it was first announced that the Morse Test was going to be done away with there were some G0's who objected with the usual comment @i had to do it so why shouldn't everyone else?' Funnily enough one particular OM I heard saying it was a terrible operator! Passing the Morse Test was no substitute for good operating - all it takes is good manners.
I am actually involved in teaching 'radio' in the Air Cadets to boys and girls - no sexism there.
If I hear you on gordon I'll happilly come back to you.
Maureen
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Post by Jackie Bosworth on Nov 8, 2006 7:24:26 GMT
Gordon, I too have heard people complaining about how easy the M3 course is. But they had to do it because Ham Radio was just dying! There were hardly any people coming in to it.
My fiance Steve was in the same boat as you, he wanted to get involved in radio for years but the morse put him off. As soon as he found out about the M3 course he signed up. He is now an M0 and is on the committee at our local club.
What I like about the M3 course is that with the correct training even young children can pass. The youngest at our club was 6 years old I think. Getting children interested in radio is such a great idea. It's an interesting hobby that encourages them to learn. Plus, these are the people who are going to keep Amateur Radio going for many years and that is important.
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Post by mm3xgp on Nov 11, 2006 19:56:19 GMT
What I like about the M3 course is that with the correct training even young children can pass. The youngest at our club was 6 years old I think. Getting children interested in radio is such a great idea. It's an interesting hobby that encourages them to learn. Plus, these are the people who are going to keep Amateur Radio going for many years and that is important. well thank you for all your feedback to my comments and well we could sum it up with the pride of britain award as first it was a female who got a school intrested in science and radio and to see the excited children being able to chat with the space station is every childs dream in a way so for the hobby it was a great advert for radio and youngsters the only thing that upsets me is that there is only one GB4FUN vehicle and this i feel is not enough as for logistic reasons we never see it north of the border as i personally think there should be more vehicles visiting schools maybe even 4 for each part of the uk as the present vehicle an ex Dti detector van do`s a great job but where are the other vehicles that are laying rusting in a yard or maybe the RSGB could make a kit available to schools and clubs who knows as they get enough of our membership money and and advert money in Radcom so maybe investing in youth radio and projects as all we hear with regards the Rsgb is promotions and things (who knows they may even read this ) so there just my views. Ok here is the details of the pride of britain awards with some video clips On Tuesday 7th November ITV1 showed the Pride of Britain Awards in which the Teacher of the Year award was given to Head Teacher, Linda Davies, who has made going to school an 'out-of-this world' experience for pupils at Wiltshire's Neston Primary School. They were the first school in Britain to speak to an astronaut in space using Amateur Radio during a ten-minute question and answer session from their moonbase-themed classroom. Head Teacher Linda Davies was awarded for her work in promoting Science at Neston Primary School in which Amateur Radio played a vital role. The Amateur Radio contact with the International Space Station (ISS) helped inspire the young people at the school to take an interest in science. ARISS and members of AMSAT-UK arranged the contact. The Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) provided the GB4FUN radio communications van. The Radio Amateurs that took part in the ISS contact were Charles Riley G4JQX (on the mic), Howard Long G6LVB and Carlos Eavis G0AKI who manages the RSGB GB4FUN van. Of these only Charles G4JQX actually appeared in the video clip shown in the programme. For those that missed the programme the video can be seen at www.g6lvb.com/Neston/NestonPOB.mpg (41.6Mb) www.g6lvb.com/Neston/NestonPOBLo.mpg (12.7Mb) Sorry for a long post but it had to be said All the best to Linda and the children for bringing radio to the masses and not just the classes Gordon
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Post by Zo - 2E0ZLD on Dec 10, 2006 14:46:35 GMT
The few who moan about females and m3`s coming into radio need to relise that there all getting old and we need to encourage new people into ham radio be it female,children whoever its one world we live in not just a male world or old timers zone Gordon Well said Gordon. It may be something as simple as these people who do this may be so frightened of change that they will resort to anything to prevent change happening. They don't seem to take on board that at the end of the day their shinanickins don't really get them anywhere except perhaps for blowing off steam at us newbies....This can be dangerous because instead of keeping things the same for them...it could end up them loosing the very thing they are trying to protect...God Forbid! Personally I haven't come across anything that I could say was because I am a female or an M3. Which I am glad of because if I had I am sure I would have been put off. M3LHI ~ Zo
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va3sbd
Getting the hang of it
Posts: 38
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Post by va3sbd on Jan 14, 2007 3:43:46 GMT
The one thing I've never had as a ham operator personally is any kind of prejudice. When I got my ham license, which this coming April will be 12 years, everyone was warm and welcoming. I got on the air before I knew my callsign because I was able to use my dad's since he had been licensed for I believe it was 8 years by that point. Every event I attended or every contest I participated in no one tried to shut me out.
To hear that some people shut others out because they are either a female or they got an M3 license is disgusting in my thoughts. I was surprised in most cases especially when it came to contesting because I might be barely hearing a station in say Spain and I'd try getting the station for 5 minutes after one of the other guys handed me the mike because they had been trying for 30 minutes and getting no where and the station would come back the Female ve3 callsign please come back and I was surprised that he could hear me whereas the other operator had been trying for 30 minutes and he couldn't hear him. It was those situations where the guys were like thanks we really appreciate you stepping in I figured we weren't getting that station and they figured all it took was a fresh voice and possibly a woman's voice might be heard a little better than a mans voice.
As for getting new blood into amateur radio well one of my electronics teachers in high school surprised me the first day we had his class, he gave his bio and started by saying I'm a ham operator and I set up a station at my previous school which was about a 20 minute drive away from my high school He did that to introduce the students there to amateur rado and it worked several of them went along to get their radio license. Another way I've seen young kids and teens get introduced to amateur radio is through two events I've manned the radio stations at in the past. One being GOTA the other being JOTA. Another event where I've organized an amateur radio station at was when I was an officer with St. John Ambulance with the cadet division we had what was known as Youth Day on the Air and that's when St. John Ambulance Cadets get on the radio and talk to other SJA Cadets. It was a success the first year because one of my cadets said to me I want to get my ham license so that I can do that referring to the APRS station we had set up. He was really into computers and loved anything to do with computers so I set him up with my old study guide and question bank and he started studying. I don't believe he has gotten his amateur radio license yet but he is still strongly interested that I know.
Well I think I'll leave some space for the next person because I'm sure this post is getting quite long. But as for any kind of prejudice being a female ham operator I've never had any problems thats for sure I've only had encouragement and praise all around.
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Post by Renae/k9do on Jan 14, 2007 4:18:36 GMT
But as for any kind of prejudice being a female ham operator I've never had any problems thats for sure I've only had encouragement and praise all around. same here! It is interesting to see what made others want to become licensed
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va3sbd
Getting the hang of it
Posts: 38
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Post by va3sbd on Jan 15, 2007 2:19:10 GMT
I know in my case the reason I wanted to become a ham was because my dad was one and he pointed out the benefits of having a ham license with the career field I was originally going to go into and my great uncle was also a ham as well, he's now an SK, but he was the reason why my dad decided he wanted to get into it as well. I guess it's a family thing for me but I know for sure I'll be the only female ham in our family my mom passed away a few years ago from cancer and she couldn't wrap her brain around the electronics and my sister isn't interested in it at all.
I love it and I'm glad I finally did get my license. It took me 3 tries but 3rd time was the charm for me and I got my 5 wpm Morse code in the 1st shot, but then again my dad was teaching the cw portion so he kind of helped me at home when I was learning it.
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Post by Maureen on Jan 15, 2007 12:18:03 GMT
I suppose there would those who would say I was being a typical Scot!! I decided to have a go after my OM got his Full licence. All the radio gear was sitting in the house unused duting the day and I decided it was a waste of money if it wasn't being used. Passed the RAE at the first attempt then later decided to go for the Morse Test (12wpm) which I also passed first time (miracle!!). With no working antennas at the moment I'm completely stuck!!
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