In article , "JAMES HAMPTON"
writes:
"Len Over 21" wrote in message
...
In article , Barry OGrady
writes:
On 29 Dec 2004 05:00:06 GMT, (Len Over 21) wrote:
In article ws.com,
"Phil
Kane" writes:
On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 18:04:32 -0500, Mike Coslo wrote:
The FCC is now allowing unlicensed operation in several bands: 6 GHz,
17
GHz and 24 GHz bands, are you concerned about the impact it will have
on
Hams?
How many people here even use the GHz bands?
Are there enough Hams to even justify further use?
They used to say the same thing about the bands above 2 meters.
We lost 220-222 MHz. That isn't important unless all the 2m and 3/4m
frequency pairs are used up.
The two-twenty loss (part of the old band there) was "lost" to hams
some time ago. The Condor Net has been living and doing fine in
what is left above it. BIG network, multiple states involved, all
tone
signalling to link along the net, designed that way before micro-
processors became commonplace.
Don't worry, anyone. Morsemanship is still necessary to get on HF
as an amateur.
No its not. My amateur license lets me use all amateur bands with no
knowledge of morse.
So...is there some secret U.S. amateur regulation restructuring
that has already removed the morse code test?!? [other than a
specific, individual medical waiver of it, possible years ago]
My commercial license let me transmit RF on a far wider range
of the EM spectrum than just the amateur bands, certainly those
few spectrum slices allocated on a primary basis to just amateurs.
Didn't even need any "license" to transmit on HF, on VHF, on UHF
and on microwaves 51+ years ago when in military service.
An amateur radio operator license is NOT a noble title indicating
a licensee is "superior" to all other human beings...except in the
personal imaginings of a few who are lost in a fantasyland.
Hello, Len
That commercial license wasn't a particularly big deal, except that you were
expected to memorize the "band plan", as it were, for VHF television. I had
to laugh, no problem with the video or audio carrier nor the allotted 6 MHz
per channel space. First question, I think, was "what is the frequency of
the video carrier of channel 6 television in the United States?". Well, I
guessed they couldn't all be that bad, so I flipped a couple of pages, put
my finger down, and examined the question by my finger. "What is the color
burst frequency?". Ah, simple. 3.58 MHz .... oops, all of the 4 answers
started with 3.579 .....
NTSC color subcarrier is exactly 3.579545454545454545454545....
MHz. :-)
Frankly speaking, I don't give a damn about that FCC field office test
I took in Chicago in March, 1956. It DID allow me to work at some
broadcast stations and earn a bit of money. I don't remember that
four-part test for a 1st 'Phone as being exclusively about broadcasting.
Maybe it changed later. Irrelevant.
A whole lot of changes have taken place in radio and electronics in
the last almost 49 years.
So, I had to take it a second time and this time I simply memorized the
splits and took a good hard look at how tightly various frequencies were
specified. Then it was easy.
I took mine just once. Everything. My "Q&A" book was a borrowed
Regulations set then printed up in loose-leaf form. All I did was
memorize what seemed to be important regulations. The theory I'd
already learned from the military experience, high-power HF trans-
mitters plus VHF, UHF, microwave radio relay. No real problem.
Not exactly IEEE stuff.
It was never intended to be such...any more than the amateur
written test is some kind of academic accomplishment.
The commercial telegraph license and radar endorsement were also not very
difficult. Such brain-strainers as "why do you avoid long horizontal
sections of waveguide".
Why would you? :-)
A commercial license is not a noble title indicating a licensee is
"superior" to all other human beings (amateurs included) LOL
I've never stated that nor implied it was. However, a lot of hams
go on and on, terribly full of themselves, on implying that Their
accomplishment is academic PhD level stuff. :-) [ ptui...]
Since 1958 I've been working in the microwaves, topping out at
the top of Ka Band (25 GHz) with only a brief time with some
2mm wavelength stuff where the waveguide had to be coin silver
electro-deposited on a polished copper mandrel (due to RF
surface conduction being too high a resistance with ordinary
silver plated guide...too much loss). I think of that lil-bitty guide
stuff as my "first SMT" exposure... :-)
A couple good reasons why amateur operations aren't widespread
at microwaves, particularly above X Band (greater than 12 GHz)
are Co$t of guide, flanges, measuring equipment, and RF sources;
there's no "magical" round-the-world bounce off the ionosphere as
with HF; so few amateurs know what they're doing at those very
short wavelengths (nearly all the present-day record setters have
commercial/military microwave experience).
One big plus at microwaves is that antenna gain can be terrific
due to beam-forming. Very little power is needed. Sure, there's
no "skip" at those frequencies, it's all line-of-sight, but eventually
there's going to be humans out there, far away. HF techniques
won't be good for interplanetary QSOs. :-)