"N2EY" wrote in message
...
In article om, "Dee D.
Flint" writes:
"N2EY" wrote in message
...
In article ,
(Brian) writes:
You don't seem to recognize that the desire to modernize the ARS has a
groundswell of support.
How do you know?
Have you made a scientific survey to determine this "groundswell"?
What constitutes "modernizing the ARS"? Shall we all go out and buy new
radios?
It doesn't need to be filtered through state
and regional directors, brought up in a board meeting, with lots of
hand-wringing that there is no clear mandate...
Then what needs to be done? What is the "mandate"?
Some folks make a big deal out of the fact that ARRL's membership is
only
about
25% of US hams. These same folks ignore the fact that No-Code
International's
membership is less than 1% of US hams, despite the fact that such
membership
has no dues and no expiration or renewal requirements.
And let's keep in mind that NCI does have a structure with officers and a
board. The detailed policies and procedures were developed by those
officers and that board based on the organization's stated goal. Thus it
was "filtered" through a limited group.
Excellent point, Dee!
What's the point? Would anyone expect that the creation
of NCI (or just about any other organization) doesn't start
on the initiative of a small group that founded the organization?
One thing that the NCI has quite convincingly demonstrated is that HARD
WORK
is what is required to achieve a goal. Although I don't agree with their
goal, I must commend them for getting in there and doing the work
required.
They did not sit on their hands and whine.
Very true - but how much "hard work" was really required?
Depends on how you measure it. I know I made a trip
to the FCC with Carl to make a direct presentation on an
"exparte" basis. There was lots of other stuff done by
different folks (web site creation, process membership donations,
etc.)
- They set up a website and a board
- They made a proposal to FCC and two directors went to Washington (on
their
own nickel, BTW) for an ex parte (3 hour drive at most)
3 hour drive...more like 4-5 hours one way.
- They petitioned FCC after the treaty changed
They organized on a world wide
basis. They lobbied the various governing bodies around the world to
support a change in the code requirement at the last ITU conference.
How much did that really take?
Do you want some sort of accounting :-) :-)
It is
all the more convincing when one considers the low percentage of hams
belonging to NCI. It shows that the minority can prevail if they have
the
commitment.
And if the governing bodies are already headed in that direction to begin
with.
We've had a nocodetest amateur license here in the USA since 1991 - that's
more
than 5 years before NCI was started.
No argument there and we'll never know the weight of NCI's
role in the 98-143 decisions...but who cares anyway? NCI
did what we did to further the end result. If anyone knew the
result beforehand, let them speak now. failing that, NCI wasn't
about to trust to chance not doing what we did. If, in the end,
it really wasn't necessary, then we don't care. We did what we
believed was necessary to further our cause.
Personally I support code testing but NCI certainly did their homework to
achieve their goal.
Agreed!
Thanks...and I do think a number of folks in this newsgroup
did not expect anything of significance to come from those of us
that formed NCI in the beginning. Those same people (IMHO)
thought NCI just was a group of people posting in this
newsgroup...they never expected the core of NCI had life
experience in FCC dealings, organization skills, web skills,
legal document writing, etc.
To NCI's credit, NCI commentary was quoted several times
in the FCC R&O on 98-143 to bolster FCC conclusions.
That's a significant accomplishment (IMHO).
Anyway, it has been a relatively good year...even of the FCC
is dragging their feet on droppng code in the USA :-) :-)
Cheers,
Bill K2UNK