Although the hobby itself is certainly dwindling in numbers, there's still a fairly reasonable level of activity on the Antique Radio Forums and in the various Facebook/other social media groups, so I think the inactivity problem here is site-specific. It is clear the forum admins checked out years ago to the community's direct detriment. When VK started having crawler/DDoS problems some months ago, it was allowed to happen for so long it eventually brought the entire site to its knees...and then after it was restored with a few Band-Aid fixes, the admins went out for milk and never came back! It is patently ridiculous Greystroke was allowed to spam the forum for as long as he did. I don't blame people for leaving, I lurk less and less myself. The Facebook groups and ARF are much more appealing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Electronic M
As someone who only collects Boomer era stuff* the disdain for them seems silly to me.
*with few exceptions the disposable chicom 80s-2000's crap that was around when I was a kid doesn't do much for me and I mostly didn't dispose of anything I'd miss from my childhood.
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I think the phrasing you use here indirectly answers the question of why there's disdain between the older and younger crowds. People aren't generally going to pay much attention to those who think whatever they're interested in is junk, even if there is some objective truth to that statement. There's an ass for every seat, there are communities of people who love and restore Yugos, PT Cruisers, etc... I'm on the younger side and grew up with the sets that a lot of people on these forums call black or silver plastic crap and scrapped/destroyed en masse when the big flatscreen transition was happening. Surprise surprise, they're now worth decent money because my generation has become nostalgic for them. I've never been partial to collecting them myself, but did find some very appreciative and loving homes for the ones I saved off the curb and fixed for fun, and most are still actively being used.
No comment on the preceding statements. If someone brings a 250k mile car to the shop with frame rot, bald tires, low compression on a few cylinders, no oil, no coolant, etc. and it happens to snap in half on the lift or die after the customer starts driving it back home, is that the mechanic's fault?