"Stinger" wrote in message
...

[snip}


I urge anyone leaning toward supporting a policy of "If you can afford
it,
you can operate it" to listen to CB radio in any major US city. If you
haven't done this, you cannot imagine what those frequencies are like now.

Now, ask yourself which is better for amateur radio -- a smaller
population
of dedicated hobbyists on the air, ready to assist in emergencies, or a
much
larger population of vandalistic undisciplined, disrespectful radio
operators that could **** off ham operators around the world, frustrating
anyone that would want to take ham up as a hobby?

-- Stinger


CB ain't what it used to be. I haven't seen modulation bars on channel 5 in
over 10 years. Haven't heard a CBer on the AM radio in almost 20. There
used to be traffic on all 40 channels, and then some. Tuned by a few days
ago, and maybe four channels were audible. Now it sounds mostly like
truckers and a few retired guys who still like to whistle into the mike.

There used to be alot of kids on CB. I guess they're using cheap cell
phones now. And kids don't seem to have the same interest in component
level electronics and radio that kids did 30 years ago. Can't blame 'em.
Consumer electronics are cheap, usually not worth fixing, and made offshore
now. A smart kid may prefer to develop an interest in the law or medicine,
rather than electronics, the way the economy looks.

I don't see how the unregulated world of CB radio bolsters either side of
the code debate. I don't think there's vast horde of disrespectful radio
vandals waiting for the new Okalahoma land rush of ham radio frequencies,
once the code requirement is dropped. I'm not sure disrespectful radio
vandals would pay much attention to licensing requriements, anyway. But, I
don't think there's a large group of people who would be good hams if only
the code requirement were dropped.

Maybe it's still like 1978 in other parts of the country. It's not here.

Frank Dresser