Last week, I went to lunch with a ham friend of mine. This fellow has been a ham for more than 60 years, and an ARRL member for most of that time. As we were waiting for our food, he says to me, “My ARRL membership is up soon, and I don’t think that I’m going to renew.”

Several years ago, I got a good deal on a Flex 6400 and thought I’d give it a try. It’s a great radio, and I enjoyed using it, but after a couple of years, I decided to give it up and buy an Icom IC-7610 instead. The main reason was the user interface—the IC-7610 has real knobs and buttons instead of just a computer screen to control its functions. Maybe I’m just being old school (I am certainly getting old), but I prefer real knobs and buttons, even if those knobs and buttons are just providing digital inputs to the processor controlling the radio.

Last Saturday, at a ham swap that I attended, Scott, N8SY, our division director, came up to my table and extended his hand. I just couldn’t shake it, though. When I didn’t reciprocate, he asked, “You’re not going to shake my hand?” I said, “No.”