The Eagles' Joe Walsh: "I'm an Analog Guy" Smorgasbord / Kirt's Cogitations™ #354
"Factoids," "Kirt's Cogitations," and
"Tech Topics Smorgasbord"
are all manifestations of my ranting on various subjects relevant (usually) to the
overall RF Cafe theme. All may be accessed on these pages:
Each month, the American Radio Relay League's (ARRL's) QST magazine runs a feature called "Member Spotlight."
Usually, the person being paid homage is a non-celebrity who has done remarkable
work to promote Ham radio. Occasionally, a well-known celebrity type gets the
honor, as is the case with the December 2023 issue's personality, Joe Walsh
(WB6ACU), who
has been the lead guitarist with the Eagles
rock band since the mid-1970s. Joe earned his license waaaay back in the year 1960,
when Morse code proficiency was a requirement. In the articles he states,
"I'm an analog guy. I like knobs more than a mouse." Many older Hams share
the sentiment.
Having spent my teenage years in the 1970s, I am
of course very familiar with the Eagles and the name Joe Walsh. Don Henley,
though, is probably the name most associated with the
Eagles.
Welcome to cyberspace, I'm lost in the fog. Everything's digital I'm still
analog. When something goes wrong I don't have a clue. Some 10-year-old smart ass
has to show me what to do. Sign on with high speed you don't have to wait.
Sit
there for days and vegetate I access my email, read all my spam, I'm an analog
man.
The whole world's living in a digital dream. It's not really there. It's all on
the screen makes me forget who I am. I'm an analog man.
Yeah I'm an analog man in a digital world. I'm gonna get me an analog girl
Who
loves me for what I am. I'm an analog man.
What's wrong with vinyl, I think it sounds great. LPs, 45s, 78s but that's
just the way I am. I'm an analog man.
Turn on the tube, watch until dawn. One hundred channels, nothing is on. Endless commercials, endless commercials, endless commercials.
The whole world's glued to the cable TV. It looks so real on the big LCD.
Murder and violence are rated PG. Too bad for the children. They are what they
see.
The whole world's living in a digital dream. It's not really there. It's all on
the screen. Makes me forget who I am. I'm an analog man.
Yeah I'm an analog man in a digital world. I'm gonna get me an analog girl who
loves me for what I am. I'm an analog man.
Joe Walsh has cut a couple solo albums aside from the Eagles works. His
latest is entitled "Analog Man," which happens to also be the title of one of
the featured songs (see lyrics to the right). Sure, it sounds a lot like an "old
guy" rant, but hey, he's an old guy (as am I, BTW).
The ARRL teams up with Joe Walsh to produce a few
Public Service
Announcements (PSAs) to promote various aspects of the hobby, including
education, public service, and international goodwill. Use of the PSA material
is encouraged and requires only notifying of your intention to air it prior to
doing so.
Getting back to the "Analog Man" album, Joe comments, "I have tried to write
about the world as I see it... There are two worlds now -- digital and the old
world, analog. For a lot of us, we've had to make adjustment. I'm concerned that
there's no time in digital. It's frozen. When you come out of a digital
experience, it's three days later and you have a beard. Every kid under twelve
can land the space shuttle, but nobody can read." Well said, and I would add,
can't do anything "real" like work on a car engine, build a wall, or cut down a
tree!
RF Cafe began life in 1996 as "RF Tools" in an AOL screen name web space totaling
2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide me with ready access to commonly needed
formulas and reference material while performing my work as an RF system and circuit
design engineer. The World Wide Web (Internet) was largely an unknown entity at
the time and bandwidth was a scarce commodity. Dial-up modems blazed along at 14.4 kbps
while tying up your telephone line, and a lady's voice announced "You've Got Mail"
when a new message arrived...
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