Every now and then – no strike that – about 50-80% of the time, when researching a ham related question, one is offered “Opinions” that are based on next to nothing.
The people espousing the “Opinions” have zero first hand experience, and in many cases have never operated much less even seen the gear or technique they confidently offer “their” thoughts about.
Useful are those opinions based on experience. The ones that start with “When I had a ACME XYZ-123 Transceiver in my shack as my main transceiver, I found that …..” or “I was able to spend a couple hours operating an ACME XYZ-123 at Jack’s shack, and I noticed ….”
Useless are those opinions that have no experience – the ones usually spouted off at meetings. These are the ones that authoritatively start with “The ACME XYZ-123 Transceiver is a piece of junk and you can’t contest with it” without an explanation. When you ask “How come?” things go vague or maybe, just maybe you will be offered “Well that is what everyone says” as a reason.
The difference between Potential Experts offering useful experience-based opinions and Blowhards just spouting off, I guess.
It is more honest when someone says “I have no experience with the ACME XYZ-123” than when they make it up or echo unattributable sources.
Experiential-based Opinions and honest “I have no experience” statement built Trust.
Blowhard destroys Trust.
Over time you learn what hams have opinions that are useful references, and what hams are just making noise.
Afraid there are longtime hams, often Expert Class, that if they told me it’s raining I would have to go check outside myself. They have squander my trust in them.
And fortunately there are some who I have learned speak from experience, and are worth listening to.
A couple people have questioned me when I have told them “I have no experience with [whatever they asked about],” encouraging an offer of an opinion anyway. Sorry to disappoint them, as I can’t pretend to have experience where I have none.
Shoot, I am still learning anyway. Probably always will be too.
One advantage of paying attention to what the Blowhards are saying is often what experienceless-opinion speaks poorly of. ends up being undervalued by the market. I’ve bought some excellent equipment that performed to realistic expectations, purchased at a discount, simply because it wasn’t popular. For years I operated with a TenTec Pegasus (an early no-knobs/display radio) because the market undervalued them despite excellent performance. They were cheap enough that in a stretched household budget with the costs of a young family, I could buy a Pegasus on the cheap. I had so much fun, moved from General to Extra Class, and made a lot of QSOs with that $400 radio & control pod.
I’ve done the same on aircraft, buying an exceptional “rag wing” Cessna C-170 and later a wonderful D-16 Twin-Navion, both which flew awesome and were economical to boot. The “rag wing” C-170 cruised faster than the C-170B planes on our field, and the Twin-Navion was very affordable to operate.
And those are my opinions based on lots of hours flying these planes, and in the case of the Pegasus in the context of when I was running one, on making QSOs with that transceiver.
73
Steve
K9ZW
With Varying Frequency - Amateur Radio Ponderings 
I figure at least 90% of the advice I’ve seen people spew out is bad. The most common one I hear since POTA took off is the constant recommendation of EFHW for every purpose. Or how every QRP rig question now turns into “That’s dumb. Just turn a 710 down to 5W.”