The larger problem is the perception of the general public of the average ham radio operator as the old white guy curmudgeon in the basement, surrounded by dusty racks of equipment, interfering with televisions, and growling at kids who show an interest in the Service. It's very hard to keep primary spectrum allocations when people don't know what you do over and above that stereotype. I have said for many years (and was elected to an American Radio Relay League leadership position by saying) that the image of ham radio as a rich old white guy's plaything needed to be supplanted quickly. Ham radio needs to become the premier emergency communications provider. It was proven during the hurricanes of '05 that Amateur Radio worked when everything else was obliterated. When the cell towers and landlines were swept away, it was the hams who were first with the most after the wind subsided. This is the type of selfless service that is growing in Amateur Radio, and the type of service to the community that will be necessary to prevent the allocations from being siphoned off by commercial interests. A codeless license with theory testing appropriate to the license privileges will go a long way to supplying those new operators, as it has in other countries. The implementation of this R&O will begin that process. Also, the 'I had to do it, why don't they' is a terrible rationale for disagreement. Times change. There is no widespread commercial or military use of Morse code. It is a pleasant pastime for those inclined. 55 years ago, my parents had to learn Latin and calculus to graduate high school. 30 years ago, I needed to have passed geometry and French. 10 years ago, my son didn't need a language and barely saw algebra. Do we all have valid high school diplomas? Answer: Yes, as the valid requirements for the certification were met at the time. These new licenses are as valid as any earned prior, and these new folks will become the backbone of the Service, just as their predecessors did.
Let's see...30 years in both emergency management and the electric motor/control business due to an interest in ham radio and electricity. Bigger things? Maybe not, but I feed my family and serve my community thanks to it. That's big enough for me.
I love a good con, especially because I don't consider myself clever enough to pull one off. It's only gravy if it's all for fun and nobody gets hurt or their pocket picked.
I have a device in place that keeps my 14 year old from viewing porn and such things. It's my foot and it goes in his ass if he engages in what I feel is marginal behavior. And he recognizes that. I talk to my kid to make sure that he's not headed for the trenchcoat militia. That's my job as a parent. I don't need the Governor of the Peoples' Republic of Illinois telling me how the hell to raise my kid or what he can see or play. That's MY damn job as a parent. I abdicate that job to no one, especially not a Chicago Democrat who couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel.
I don't know which is more cool: the cobalt blue internal glow from a slightly gassy power amp tube or the phosphorescent green of the mighty Magic Eye tube.
Unfortunately, our ACLU friends look at the Bill of Rights in cafeteria fashion...we'll defend what we like, and excuse ourselves from the rest. Apparently they've succumbed to the 'living document' idiocy that has given us 'law' written by the Supreme Court. Wonderful tripe like Roe v. Wade and the ever-popular 'wall between church and state'. I dare you to find either of those items in the Bill of Rights or the Federalist Papers which were written to amplify and explain the document. BTW, nobody ever reads past the first phrase of the first amendment. "Congress shall make no law establishing an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...". Seems like a lot of the crap being tossed around limiting the expression of religion should be ripe for an ACLU defense per the previous quote. You don't see any of that because it isn't a good liberal position.
Oh, God NO!!! All interference is due to evil, selfish hams! It sucks that everytime the subject of ham radio comes up that someone who had a crappy experience years ago with one guy has to unlimber his tarbrush.
Unfortunately, the visible side of ham radio is the interference, the on-the-air whining about bunions and bypasses, and the useless contesting which probably does more to clog the HF airwaves on weekends than BPL ever will. We hams are going to reap the benefits of bad responses like this guy's (which never get forgotten), the inability to relate our hobby to the kids, and promotion of some odd kind of secret society mentality. Yeah, we do public service, but not enough to save our asses this time.
So don't go assuming that I'm another G.W. Bush trying to get even for what someone did to my father years ago.
I still haven't heard a bit of positive, i. e. not all amateur radio operators are overcompensating boobs who carelessly ionize birds for miles around for self-gratification. Which just ain't so. Conseqently, I don't see your comments as anything better than exercise of an old prejudice. Whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, amateur radio did advance the technology in the electronics community for many years. We still provide valued public service and aid in times of disaster and emergency. Those are facts. Your ancient RFI-based grudge is an anecdote. Life goes on, and I'm afraid so will your silly assault on a group of mostly decent people.
And of course, your solution is to paint us all with the same tar brush because somebody gave your dad a ration of shit many years ago.
I don't own an amplifier. Maybe that makes me content with the pecker that God issued me (at least in your world).
I maintain that there are still a sturdy contingent of clueless folks who blame every belch of their electronics on the 'guy with the big antenna'. Let ME tell YOU a story. Twice in my ham/CB career I was summoned to neighbor's homes to answer for my alleged TV interference. Twice I tried to keep from laughing myself to urination while the TV went batshit with 'my' interference while I was standing there! I was a lot more gracious than I should have been, as the accusers were in both cases complete assholes. Had they not been so, or showed a little remorse at accusing me falsely, I might have been motivated to help them find the ne'er-do-wells. As it was, I was very happy to let them live with their irritations.
Moral: there are a lot of folks that are given to overcompensating. A few of them do it here.
Have a few issues because of some television interference once upon a time, or what? Sure ham radio is dated, slow, crippled, and whatever else you call it. It also keeps us out of the taverns the same way that the Internet keeps modern geeks sober. You want to whine about unnecessary traffic polluting the airwaves, let's talk about Oprah, radar guns, and RFID tags.
http://www.calumetcity.org
Click on "Terms of Use". I'll wager that there is no equal of this level of arrogance, along with a finely tuned lack of appreciation for the entire theory behind the Internet.
This is the same community that recently tried to severely regulate the public forum portion of the city council meetings by requiring a detailed description of the proposed topic and submittal of text if a prepared statement was to be read. Deviations from the submittal would result in ejection from the forum. "Slanderous" or "insulting" comments directed against city officials would have resulted in a $50-$200 fine upon conviction.
And, no, I don't live there any more or have an ax to grind with them. Unconstitutional activity fascinates me.
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Ironworker. He got remedial help through the trades. Has a learning disability, too.
I didn't tell him that math wasn't important, it was all that he could process at the time.
The larger problem is the perception of the general public of the average ham radio operator as the old white guy curmudgeon in the basement, surrounded by dusty racks of equipment, interfering with televisions, and growling at kids who show an interest in the Service. It's very hard to keep primary spectrum allocations when people don't know what you do over and above that stereotype. I have said for many years (and was elected to an American Radio Relay League leadership position by saying) that the image of ham radio as a rich old white guy's plaything needed to be supplanted quickly. Ham radio needs to become the premier emergency communications provider. It was proven during the hurricanes of '05 that Amateur Radio worked when everything else was obliterated. When the cell towers and landlines were swept away, it was the hams who were first with the most after the wind subsided. This is the type of selfless service that is growing in Amateur Radio, and the type of service to the community that will be necessary to prevent the allocations from being siphoned off by commercial interests. A codeless license with theory testing appropriate to the license privileges will go a long way to supplying those new operators, as it has in other countries. The implementation of this R&O will begin that process.
Also, the 'I had to do it, why don't they' is a terrible rationale for disagreement. Times change. There is no widespread commercial or military use of Morse code. It is a pleasant pastime for those inclined. 55 years ago, my parents had to learn Latin and calculus to graduate high school. 30 years ago, I needed to have passed geometry and French. 10 years ago, my son didn't need a language and barely saw algebra. Do we all have valid high school diplomas? Answer: Yes, as the valid requirements for the certification were met at the time. These new licenses are as valid as any earned prior, and these new folks will become the backbone of the Service, just as their predecessors did.
I'm betting that very few people who haven't seen the rest of the series are going to say 'wow, Ebert liked it, I think I'll go'.
Either you are into the entire idea or not.
Let's see...30 years in both emergency management and the electric motor/control business due to an interest in ham radio and electricity. Bigger things? Maybe not, but I feed my family and serve my community thanks to it. That's big enough for me.
I love a good con, especially because I don't consider myself clever enough to pull one off. It's only gravy if it's all for fun and nobody gets hurt or their pocket picked.
Nice job!
I have a device in place that keeps my 14 year old from viewing porn and such things. It's my foot and it goes in his ass if he engages in what I feel is marginal behavior. And he recognizes that. I talk to my kid to make sure that he's not headed for the trenchcoat militia. That's my job as a parent. I don't need the Governor of the Peoples' Republic of Illinois telling me how the hell to raise my kid or what he can see or play. That's MY damn job as a parent. I abdicate that job to no one, especially not a Chicago Democrat who couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel.
http://w1.871.telia.com/~u87149908/eyes/
...you can't set a laser printer on 'stun'?
Didn't read the whole post, huh?
Unfortunately, our ACLU friends look at the Bill of Rights in cafeteria fashion...we'll defend what we like, and excuse ourselves from the rest. Apparently they've succumbed to the 'living document' idiocy that has given us 'law' written by the Supreme Court. Wonderful tripe like Roe v. Wade and the ever-popular 'wall between church and state'. I dare you to find either of those items in the Bill of Rights or the Federalist Papers which were written to amplify and explain the document. BTW, nobody ever reads past the first phrase of the first amendment. "Congress shall make no law establishing an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...". Seems like a lot of the crap being tossed around limiting the expression of religion should be ripe for an ACLU defense per the previous quote. You don't see any of that because it isn't a good liberal position.
Oh, God NO!!! All interference is due to evil, selfish hams! It sucks that everytime the subject of ham radio comes up that someone who had a crappy experience years ago with one guy has to unlimber his tarbrush.
Unfortunately, the visible side of ham radio is the interference, the on-the-air whining about bunions and bypasses, and the useless contesting which probably does more to clog the HF airwaves on weekends than BPL ever will. We hams are going to reap the benefits of bad responses like this guy's (which never get forgotten), the inability to relate our hobby to the kids, and promotion of some odd kind of secret society mentality. Yeah, we do public service, but not enough to save our asses this time.
I still haven't heard a bit of positive, i. e. not all amateur radio operators are overcompensating boobs who carelessly ionize birds for miles around for self-gratification. Which just ain't so. Conseqently, I don't see your comments as anything better than exercise of an old prejudice. Whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, amateur radio did advance the technology in the electronics community for many years. We still provide valued public service and aid in times of disaster and emergency. Those are facts. Your ancient RFI-based grudge is an anecdote. Life goes on, and I'm afraid so will your silly assault on a group of mostly decent people.
I'm moving on. Can you?
And of course, your solution is to paint us all with the same tar brush because somebody gave your dad a ration of shit many years ago.
I don't own an amplifier. Maybe that makes me content with the pecker that God issued me (at least in your world).
I maintain that there are still a sturdy contingent of clueless folks who blame every belch of their electronics on the 'guy with the big antenna'. Let ME tell YOU a story. Twice in my ham/CB career I was summoned to neighbor's homes to answer for my alleged TV interference. Twice I tried to keep from laughing myself to urination while the TV went batshit with 'my' interference while I was standing there! I was a lot more gracious than I should have been, as the accusers were in both cases complete assholes. Had they not been so, or showed a little remorse at accusing me falsely, I might have been motivated to help them find the ne'er-do-wells. As it was, I was very happy to let them live with their irritations.
Moral: there are a lot of folks that are given to overcompensating. A few of them do it here.
Have a few issues because of some television interference once upon a time, or what? Sure ham radio is dated, slow, crippled, and whatever else you call it. It also keeps us out of the taverns the same way that the Internet keeps modern geeks sober. You want to whine about unnecessary traffic polluting the airwaves, let's talk about Oprah, radar guns, and RFID tags.
And who says that antennas are unsightly?
http://www.calumetcity.org
Click on "Terms of Use". I'll wager that there is no equal of this level of arrogance, along with a finely tuned lack of appreciation for the entire theory behind the Internet.
This is the same community that recently tried to severely regulate the public forum portion of the city council meetings by requiring a detailed description of the proposed topic and submittal of text if a prepared statement was to be read. Deviations from the submittal would result in ejection from the forum. "Slanderous" or "insulting" comments directed against city officials would have resulted in a $50-$200 fine upon conviction. And, no, I don't live there any more or have an ax to grind with them. Unconstitutional activity fascinates me.