Mike,

Heh - I have carefully avoided that discussion so far, as it seems to
be taking on a life of its own.....aw, OK, if you insist......

For the record - and staying well away from the current "who edited
whose post, was that ethical and did they intend t make it look like
the original author did it?" debacle - my personal view of the "Kim's
Call Sign" issue is as follows (and directed at no particular person
or whacko in particular) :

- W5TIT is a valid and legal call sign issued by the US Government,
via the FCC - if they believed that it was inappropriate, they could
have removed it from the list of available suffixes just like the
Motor Vehicle Licensing folks do with certain (ahem) words and
acronyms

- she earned the right to it by becoming licensed, just like every
other Amateur

- she has the right to pick any vanity call sign that she chooses, so
long as the FCC has not prohibited it for whatever reason. Why that
particular call? That's nobody's business except hers!

- she deserves to be addressed by her call sign if she so chooses - I
assume that in Texas, she may have it on her vehicle licence plate
too!

- no one other than the FCC has the right to prevent or censor her
use of it in any way (say, this might be the first legitimate use of
the 'Free Speech' thing here on the group!) Would those who refuse to
spell out her dreaded call here in the group refuse to say it on the
air as well? Jeez, seek help, your inhibitions just might be taking
over your life!

- in Ontario, VA3TIT is available - VE3TIT is in use (by a gentleman
named Neil - would someone like to censor him too? ).
Apparently, just like the US, the Canadian government sees nothing
wrong with this suffix either. (and neither does Neil, I suppose...)

- the thing that really needs to be censored here is the sophomoric
behaviour, boorishness and tittering (sorry - couldn't resist) of a
few sadly immature folks here in the group.

- if Kim interprets the intentional omittance of her callsign from
newsgroup posts as disrespectful towards her personally, then she and
I have something in common - so would I!

and, lastly

- Kim is definitely braver than me - I choose not to use my call sign
on the Usenet groups, to limit the number of crazies that have access
to my snail mail info, where she is willing to deal head on with
whomever, whenever in defense of her rights as detailed above.

In summary - you go, girl!

73, Leo


On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 13:54:30 -0500, Mike Coslo wrote:

snip

If we don't want to talk about the Morse code test, maybe Kim's
callsign? 8^)

- Mike KB3EIA -