In article , Leo
writes:
On 04 Sep 2004 02:41:02 GMT, (Len Over 21) wrote:
In article , Leo
writes:
On 03 Sep 2004 05:40:43 GMT, (Len Over 21) wrote:
In article , Leo
writes:
On 02 Sep 2004 04:18:56 GMT, (Len Over 21) wrote:
In article , Leo
writes:
On 01 Sep 2004 20:09:31 GMT, (Len Over 21) wrote:
The RAC proposal to IC was based on an Internet survey which was open
to all licensed Canadian amateurs (not just RAC members).
The ARRL proposal seems to have been developed autonomously by the
Directors, with little (if any) input from the Amateur community. No
wonder everyone was surprised when it was filed!
That's the thing...the entrenched "we know what's best for you
(members) and everyone else" attitude. Many don't agree with that
and haven't joined even if they can afford the small annual dues.
The league got away with that for decades before the Internet went
public in 1991. They did all the interfacing with the FCC, most of
the lobbying, then promoted themselves as the Big Brother of all
U.S. hams. They managed to convince a hard core of Believers
who are outraged and ready to fight anyone who says the least
little negative thing about the league. [witness some of its Believers
in here]
I have!
I hope you meant that as "witnessing" not as a Believer...?
I have indeed witnessed such behaviour amongst the true Desciples
themselves - I do not, however, count myself amongst their ranks.
ITo me, it's a hobby, not a religion - one does not need to believe
all of the doctrine, or any of it for that matter, to join in. Just
follow the law, and go for it!
That sounds eminently reasonable...except some do not follow
such opinions. :-)
I'm in favour of it - and my comments to that effect have been filed
with IC, as of today.
Good on you!
I have to agree with Hans Brakob in that our northern neighbor in
Norse America is doing the right thing for their future.
Modernization
is long overdue. [excuse me...NORTH America...;-) ]
heh.....that brought back memories of Leif The Lucky from grade
school!
Norsemen were the first European discoverers of North America.
Yup - long before Columbus got lost and thought this was India!
He should have bought that Garwin GPS handheld when he had
the chance... :-)
.....or stopped using his sextant as a telescope 
Settled in what is now Canada (New Foundland) for a while.
Dunno why they left...maybe they objected to speaking French?
...they probably left because they couldn't find jobs
(the unemployment rate in Newfie is a whopping 20% or so - WAY above
the national average of just over 7%!)
A definite NOT GOOD situation there. My sympathies with the
workers not working.
Mine too. Been there a few times myself (isn't Telecom grand!) -
nothing worse than no job when you want to work!
Been there, done that, courtesy of the "job security" in aerospace.
Fortunately, there were lots of aerospace companies in southern
California. Haven't been in many "employment insurance" lines,
but once is enough.
Amen.
As an aside, the enmity between Lockheed Aircraft and the state
of California (state winning) resulted in a HUGE shopping center
in Burbank built on what had been their main production complex.
(Lockheed moved out, sold all their holdings). The electronics part
of the aerospace industry here migrated towards south and
northwest. Some of those going south emulated Silicon Valley
and began semiconductor production...fairly sizeable quantities too.
ARRL is 90 years old and they have not had much turnover at Hq.
That leads to "cronyism" in Hq and a resultant status-quo thinking
which has contributed to their lack of getting new membership.
St. Hiram hisself remained president since day one until he got too
old to show up at the office. Dave Sumner is "executive president"
and isn't votable out of office.
While there is a BoD at the ARRL, the publications arm takes its
direction direct from Hq staff. That leads to a concentration of
who-runs-what to the Newington group despite all the self-promotion
of "democratic principle" BoD "discussions." That publishing arm
is a mighty strong venue for getting readers to think the way the
Hq advisers say they should. Not that many publications left for
radio amateurs down here.
and just one here except for the bi-monthly RAC nagazine.......the
other options are QST and CQ.
Nothing from the RSGB? :-)
Concentration of information dissemination is a very sharp two-
edged sword. The bad edge is that minimalization of venues
is a wonderful gift for those who would wish to dictate the proper
way to think and act. Those who publish periodicals control
everything in those publications. Everything.
Especially up here! Some cities, like Winnipeg, have parking
meters with elecreical outletsbuilt in, to plug the engine block
heater into. The outlet is energized only while the meter is active -
money runs out, outlet goes off, and engine begins to rapidly chill
down to ambient temp - which in Winnipeg in February go as low as -50
degrees F or so. The bottom line: pay the meter, or your car ain't
lokely to start when you get back to it!
:-( I have put such cold-weather thoughts out of my mind a long time
ago, moving to the sunbelt in late 1956. Northern Illinois temps aren't
as cold as farther north but they were cold enough.
If I want freezing temperatures on equipment, I just go down to the lab
and pop the door to the Tenney chamber, adjust the dials, and viola,
"instant polar temperatures!" :-)
I have one of the AADE kits - installed on an old Realistic DX-150B.
Works perfectly - a stable and accurate digital readout. Easy to
interface to the set too! Considering that the dial calibration was
pretty crappy on that set, and resisted every effort to tweak the
adjustments to fix that adequately, the freq readout masi it a
(relatively) useful piece of equipment again.
The kids DX with it sometimes, even still,,,,,,,
Electronic etymology dept.: AADE isn't the first such application
of a microprocessor adapted as a frequency counter. Those go back
about 8 years to the UK and a non-ham electronic hobbyist,
according to an Internet search. AADE is the big maker-seller now
and does a very credible job at a very affordable price for frequency
accuracy. Easy to order for most of the post-WW2 antiques. :-)
It's also a credit to Microchip Inc. and their extremely affordable
microcontroller line (dozens of models) of "PIC" ICs. Microchip gives
away their development software and all a hobbyist has to do is buy
the simple development hardware. The rest is up to the hobbyist
who has to learn a different "code," that of assembler instructions and
putting them in the proper order to accomplish a function.
A big and growing electronic hobby is robotics. Fun thing and gets
down deep to electronics guts. [I'm not into that but some of their
ideas are interesting and useful] Microchip is vying with Atmel on
micros there. Both makers also were used in "radio clocks" a few
years ago, once a thing only for hobbyists until the off-shore
consumer market producers (more than 30 brands now) put $20 and
$30 [US] radio clocks on the store shelves. Microcontrollers do all
the "heavy" work of filtering (via DSP), decoding of WWVB one-
minute data, arithmetic and date-keeping. Most are very low-power,
run on a couple dry cells for over a year.
Months back I heard one ham cussing up a storm on how radio
clocks aren't "real radio!" Operate on 60 KHz, not "real radio
frequencies," don't use "real radio circuits" and, worse, "don't use
real code at 20 WPM, just some #$%^@@!! (hack, ptui) data at
one bit per second!" :-) He was working up a real case of mouth
frothing on the subject before he got sidetracked to another anger-
venting discussion.
USA still doesn't have any LF ham bands, yet other countries do.
ARRL apparently doesn't want to get involved in computer code,
only morse code. Their foray into PC-compatible circuit analysis
went DEFUNCT when "Radio Designer" selling was stopped. Tsk.
[they couldn't call it a SPICE program which it was, but then they
use different names for circuits and things that the rest of the
electronics industry uses...SPICE core is absolutely free for
anyone to use]
I still use my old Heathkit SB-400 SSB tube transmitter on the air -
with the antenna tuner, it's a handful to tune up, compared to the
newer rigs. But, if I actually manage to raise someone with it, it's
a minor miracle, and I feel much more a part of the process than if I
simply turned the tuning knob on a more modern unit. Plus, I bought
it DOA and completely overhauled it back to life - as a result, I'm
very familiar with the inner workings of the thing.
My own personal contribution to the past, I suppose.....that, or I'm
too cheap to buy a new rig - or both
There's nostalgia and then there's nostalgia. :-)
Heh!
Ben Tongue, co-founder of the Blonder-Tongue CATV company,
found a niche hobby in (of all things) "crystal sets." In his
pages on the Blonder-Tongue website he's done SPICE analysis
on various ways to hook up that awfully complicated, non-active-
device crystal receiver. :-)
heh heh heh...I'm waiting for one of my "fan club" to make more
trashmouth about that... :-)
Won't be long now, I'll bet!
Didn't take them but a short time over our holiday weekend. :-)
I was gone but the "fans" were busy, busy, busy making me into
some radioactive Antichrist. :-)
Heh. This reminds me of the story of Micro Henry, who took Millie Amp
for a ride on his Mega Cycle - ah, the good old college days.....
Old story, really, I think it goes back as far as WW2 days.
I believe that - my experience with it only goes back to 1975!
A beat-up mimeographed copy was circulating around the
Fort Monmouth Signal School back in 1952. Might have been
a draft version from even earlier times. :-)
No xerography machines back then. U.S. military made
copies by first "cutting stencils" for mimeographing. Paper
was acidic and didn't last more than 30 years or so before
crumbling in open air. More better was the paper roll from
teleprinters with use-once flimsy carbon paper. Paper tape
lasted longest of all, could repro exactly via a p-tape reading
teleprinter.
Now we can get quality paper cheap, use inkjet printers
connected to computers and turn out camera-ready copy from
one of several WYSIWYG text editors...even spell-checked if
someone bothered to switch that in. :-)
There's all sorts of audio range recorders, from open-reel mag
tape to limited-time all-digital electronic memo-pad things. VHS
videotape has been adapted to recording multi-megabytes of
data, even archiving of PC files.
But...some radio amateurs insist and insist and insist that ALL
new radio amateurs MUST learn morse code to get that license.
Otherwise they "aren't real amateurs."
:-)