I am so glad there are so few actually involved in this list. Fellow hams here are again becoming an embarrassment to the hobby.
Whining and moaning about the lack of use of the FM birds 364 days out of the year ... Now hams are complaining that the FM birds were too busy for them to access for Field Day.
Additionally, it's been sad to see how many illiterate hams we have in this group - as few cannot read the Field Day rules and properly interpret some pretty basic sentences as they apply to working the satellites.
Then we have the "The odds of getting a "real ham" on the ISS are pretty small in my view" folks - truly a "view" of ignorance. It's like complaining, "How DARE the astronauts aboard not come out and play with me on amateur radio." Yes, there was fifteen minutes scheduled for amateur radio contacts last weekend. (Very few actually read the daily schedules for the astronauts - if they did, they'd realize that those aboard the ISS complete more tasks before lunch each day than you and I perform in many times that time.) But to moan that they chose to perform another task and now demeaning them as "not REAL hams" is insulting.
I witnessed similar immature behavior from my fellow hams last April 12, when we were hoping that ARISSat-1 would be activated for the Yuri Gagarin commemorations world-wide. Hams were screaming bloody murder when Web sites weren't being updated second-by-second to meet their demands for information.
I repeat myself from an earlier post (same sentiment as a subsequent post by another) - Hams on the west coast of the United States performed well on the FM satellites last weekend. I am proud to live on this "left coast," as I read that others had "problems" elsewhere.
I am giving my 13th formal satellite presentation of the year to a group tomorrow night ... Seems I do not have to change a thing that is taught to fellow hams out here.
Clint Bradford, K6LCS http://www.work-sat.com 909-241-7666