This follows on the lines of the thread that Mike and I have commented
on previously, so here goes:

On 18 Jan 2004 20:34:05 GMT, (Len Over 21) wrote:

Alternative Universe Probable Truisms -

1. There would be NO ARRL to provide "guidance" and direction.
That expired before St. Hiram expired. [in this alternative
universe] Newington, CT, would have no museum.

True - no AR, no ARRL. Mr. Maxim would be remembered only as the
inventor of the Maxim Silencer for explosive weapons, and for his work
on automobile silencers (mufflers, I assume).

However, following along with the subject of the thread - the startup
of a "new" Amateur Radio Service" would concievably attract a lot of
people to it - an organization starting up to represent them and their
interests (and take their money) seems like a given.


2. There would be NO morse code test since no other radio
service except Maritime Radio used morse code. There
would be NO need to keep a "pool of trained morse radio
operators" for any national need.

True enough - if amateur radio were invented today, it's pretty
unlikely that Morse Code would be a mandatory requirement or play any
significant role - it's a dead technology in the commercial and
military world today (just spies and some covert military ops remain
professional users of morse signalling today). I believe that it
would be a 'special interest' thing for people who wanted to play
around with it.

I wonder, though, if in the absence of Amateur Radio, something else
might have evolved to meet the need of having extra trained people
available? Perhaps an auxillary (and voluntary) communications corps,
mobilized by the military or local government during times of need?
They might even provide the equipment and training...wouldn't be free,
though - Amateur Radio doesn't cost them much (if anything) to
mobilize.


3. There would be NO tales of olde-tyme ham doings because
there would be no old-timers left to tell the tales...only
pretenders who longed for a simpler (mythical) life way back
before they were born.

Well, there would still be old timers telling tales - just not ham
radio ones


4. The Titanic would have sunk anyway and several movies made
about that tragedy.

Unfortunately, yes. And many other unfortunate events may well have
become much disasters or have increased in magnitude, as there would
have been far less people monitoring the bands and detecting /
relaying emergency traffic if the ARS had not existed.

"Independence Day" would have been
made anyway as a comic science-fiction vehicle for Will Smith
who would later wear black suits and shades.

Uh-huh...even the ARS was unable to save the world from this.


5. Hallicrafters and National Radio and Heathkit would have gone
belly-up anyway. Collins Radio would have continued on into
the military and commercial radio market without making any
overpriced fancy amateur radios. Yaesu, Kenwood, Icom
would still have been successful in the commercial and
government market. SGC might still exist but in the personal
sailing market. Ten-Tec might not exist.

Without the ARS, one indeed wonders how long companies like
Hallicrafters and National would have survived - after WWII, amateur
radio was a large part of their market. Could they have hung on by
just selling radio equipment to SWLs listening to foreign commercial
broadcasts?

Some companies may never have started up in the first place, as their
beginnings were entirely in amateur radio.


6. Radio broadcasting would have become successful and tele-
vision broadcasting even more so. "Overseas radiotelephone"
would still exist via the first HF SSB radios in the 1930s. The
first VHF FM mobiles would still be tested by various police
departments in the late 1930s. The military would still be the
first HT user courtesy of Galvin (later Motorola)...and the back-
pack radio ("walkie-talkie" again from Galvin)...and the radio
relay (WW2) and VHF repeater (Korean War) uses...and single-
channel HF SSB (USAF, post WW2)...and aircraft VHF AM
(WW2). HF RTTY circuits would have been formed before WW2
and continued on in wide-bandwidth HF SSB, later to have
much higher data rates from transferrence of modem and
information theory techniques. Cross-country microwave radio
relay would still exist for hundreds of telephone circuits and
many TV circuits on a single link. Government and business
would still have tens of thousands of HT and mobile radios
courtesy of the military WW2 legacy and the invention of
transistors and integrated circuits. Communications satellites
would still exist as soon as rockets could put them up there
(first published paper on that by an up-coming science fiction
writer named Arthur C. Clarke, then a "boffin" in the RAF right
after WW2). All sorts of watercraft would have VHF radios in
harbors due to the success of small land VHF radios. Radio-
sondes by the hundreds of thousands would be used up
annually using simple one-tube (pencil triode in a sheet metal
cavity) transmitters in low microwave frequencies. The cellular
telephone (past legal age in our universe) would still exist by
the millions, morphed into a single-hand package with built-in
video capability. There would still be "headphone radio"
receivers for personal use, sometimes merged with CD players.
"Wireless" would take on a new meaning as hundreds of
thousands of data transceivers linked computers without wires.
"Shortwave" broadcasting would still be trying out digital
sound and finding out that it works despite dire warnings of
impossibility. The U.S. military would still be using digital VHF
manpack radios with encryption for voice and data for a total of
a quarter million sets. None of the preceding required any
"ham radio pioneering."

Agreed - commercial and military radiocommunications would have grown
anyway. Although some developments came from amateur radio, many more
did not.

A few years ago, I attended a Lucent course on their CDMA (spread
spectrum, code division multiple access) cellular base station radio
equipment. A Qualcomm engineer (CDMA is their patented technology)
started off his presentation by asking us if we knew who invented the
concept of CDMA. Bell Labs? MIT? The military? No. It was a
German actress named Hedy Lamarr! She propsed it as a method of
secret communications back in the 40s - obviously the technology
(powerful computers) to implement it did not exist at the time. He
went on to further amaze the group by informing us that she also
devised the concept of frequency hopping (which I believe was used
during the war - please correct me if I am wrong). Definitely a good
thing that she got out of Germany prior to the war! Hedy was not an
amateur, and had no interest in radio.

Good ideas come from everywhere.

A question: what would not have been invented, or delayed, had the ARS
not existed?


7. Arthur Godfrey would still get his TV show cancelled. Barry
Goldwater would still unsuccessfully run for U.S. President.
[the fate of Julius LaRosa is unknown in this universe]

Absolutely


8. The Federal Communications Commission would still exist on
approximately the same scale and still trying to privatize
commercial operator testing to save money. Radio use by
non-hams after 1934 grew sufficiently large to require the
agency to continue.

I believe that they would, along with IC and all of the other national
regulatory agencies. It's a vast spectrum, and most of their energies
are directed towards management of the commercial sector.


9. "CB" would have been created anyway, a fore-runner of the
license-free personal radio wave of the future. [it is 46 years
old in our universe which already has FRS, R-C, cordless
telephones and wireless gizmos of all kinds]

Probably - people love to communicate! Folks would have seen the
cabbies, police and other commercial operators using 2-way radio
equipment, many ex-military guys would have experienced using the
technology first hand, and would have wanted the same type of system
for themselves. (in the pre-cellular telephone days, anyway...). And,
if there's a market, somebody would have developed it!


10. Tens of thousands of electronic/radio hobbyists would be
bereft of Title, Status, Privilege of the Royal-equivalent.
Amateur Radio License that allowed them to add a callsign
behind their names to show how good and expert they were in
"radio." That would make it a bitter scene with many more
fights of the amateurs (minority) with professionals (majority).

Personally, I don't view my license as a measure of my expertise in
the art of radio. As my examiner told me when he shook my hand after
I passed the test - it's a license to learn.

Nothing more.


LHA / WMD

73, Leo