Sorry to hear about all the negative experiences. It’s so cool you’ve contacted the ISS, though. I wanna do it at some point as well!

I’m also in rural, southern USA (North Carolina. Only gotta drive about 2 minutes up the road to see a house with a confederate flag flying!) and similar experiences to yours have driven me away from most local nets. Some of the wild stuff I’ve heard these boomers (and older) say has made it unpalatable to say the least. I recall when studying for the Technician’s exam, the study guide I was reading said “There’s really no specific list of things you can’t say on the radio, but basically don’t say it if you wouldn’t say it in front of your mother.” Unfortunately a lot of these guys would clearly say a whole lot of casually racist, homophobic, xenophobic, misogynistic, etc stuff in front of their mothers without a second thought.

One local net I was frequenting about 2 years ago had a woman show up and all the guys were just super weird about it. Like a video game lobby voice chat, but older and creepier. 🤦‍♂️

I agree we gotta start handing out cheap handsets and licenses to zoomers ASAP, lol. I’m a millennial (33) and would very much like for HAM radio to be more inclusive.