wrote:
wrote:
From: on Wed,Apr 13 2005 4:28 am
Dave Heil wrote:
wrote:
wrote:
From: N2EY on Apr 12, 4:20 pm
wrote:
I simply don't want to read Len's story about ADA again. He's
posted it
here so many times I can recite it from memory. But
he never explains why it has any bearing on amateur radio
policy today.
I've already explained the "bearing it has" years ago.
No, you didn't. Not how *your* experience at ADA (a military radio
station) has any bearing, or relevance, to amateur radio
policy today.
Let's take it again, from the top...
Back in the beginning of the 1950s, the U.S. military
was NOT using any morse code modes for long-distance
point-to-point communications.
How do you know this for sure?
Granted, you didn't see any "morse code modes" in use at
ADA. But to say there was none used at all, anywhere in the
US military is a different thing.
What's interesting is that you have to qualify the statement
as "long-distance point-to-point communications" - because
Morse Code was then still being used *extensively* by the US
Navy, by the maritime radio services, by aircraft and by many
other radio services such as press services.
Yeah...Let's just forget that this forum has had at least two
participants who had career-length service in military communications
who have testified that Morse Code was INDEED in daily use.
Morse Code is STILL taught to this day in the Armed Forces.
Your tunnel vision of "long-distance point-to-point communications"
by
the US military is about as relevant as the
fact that Morse Code wasn't in use on the AM broadcast band in the
1930s.
Most of that message
"traffic" was written teleprinter that carried the
vast majority of military communications.
Yep.
And it was on fixed, predetermined frequencies, using equipment
most individuals could not afford to buy.
And it was *not* the kind of communications that make up the vast
majority of amateur radio communications.
NO morse code modes were used on such radio circuits
afterwards.
At some point, anyway. The US Navy was still using Morse Code long
after the beginning of the 1950s. So was the Coast Guard. They are
"US
military".
Didn't Hans put that well into the 70's for the Navy? And I
believe Jeff said the Coast Guard still had SOME facilities into the
80's?
For over half a century (actually, since before WW2)
the brunt of messaging in the military has been done
by modes OTHER than morse code.
Even if true, (it's not) so what? Ham radio isn't "the military",
and amateur radio communications isn't only about "messaging".
You're argument says that since most US Navy ships stopped relying on
the wind for propulsion long ago, nobody should own a sailboat today,
even for "a hobby pursuit, a recreation, something done on free time
for enjoyment."
Very illogical.
Yep. And since we have drag lines and other "commercial" methods
of fishing, no one may use a hook, line and sinker any more. Who needs
it?
An approximation of
the amount of such military traffic is a minimum of
1 1/2 MILLION messages a MONTH back in 1955.
So what? Hams don't have the same resources, nor the same basis and
purpose.
I say that was Bravo Sierra. Bravo Sierra in spades.
That would have been 50,000 pieces of traffic A DAY.
It should be obvious to rational people that there is
NO need for any morse code testing for a hobby radio
activity.
There's where you make an illogical jump. You hold up what
the US military allegedly did, then say it's somehow connected
to what hams should do.
For CB radio, absolutely.
For Radio Control models, no contest.
For Part 15 experimenters, no doubt.
For an Amateur Radio license on HF...you don't know what you're
talking about, Lennie.
It is NOT a "national service."
Actually, amateur radio is internationally recognized by treaty, and
it's a radio service.
It's an internationally recognized resource that is codified into
law, and, despite Lennie's protestations to the contrary, DOES provide
a service within the United States of America.
His attempts to draw parallels between "The Amateur Radio Service"
and Amateur Radio as a "service" vis-a-vis the Armed Forces is worn,
lame, and ineffective.
It is NOT
needed to "maintain a reserve of 'skilled' radio
operators" for the nation or even a locality.
Sure it is. Just ask those folks who ran the recent emergency drills.
They were very appreciative of the contributions of amateur radio
operators.
And again Lennie utters an assertion in the face of FACTS to the
contrary and demonstrates his own utterly failed understanding of what
it's all about...
There is
only the artificiality of some hazing exercise so
that those who pass can adopt the artificiality of
doing something that few can.
Nope. It's a bout a basic skill, that's all. Almost anyone can do it.
Blind and deaf persons have passed the Morse Code exam.
Lennie has made occassional statements that he was, at least at
one time, proficient in Morse Code at about 8-10WPM.
If Lennie can do it, then ABSOLUTELY any one else can do it!
Naturally, since you are one of those old-timers who
thinks of little else but morse code operation on
the HF amateur bands.
No, that's not true at all. That's just one of my interests.
I wonder why Lennie keeps trying to bouy that lie when tons and
tons of conversations in this forum have demonstrated otherwise...?!?!
"It ain't braggin if ya done it..." I did it.
All by yourself? Or were there hundreds - thousands - of others there
too, backed up by the enormous resources of the USA - both civilian
and
military?
We remember the "1.2 million message" claim from two years ago,
Lennie...Back then you tried to make it sound as if it was YOUR doings
alone.
Then you switched gears after a bit of elementary school math
rubbed the numbers in your face and 'admitted' that it was a 'team
effort' at ADA. It still doesn't put YOU in the comm center other than
to change broken black boxes, because YOUR MOS's were as a radio
mechanic.
You were never a radio operator in the Armed Forces.
Now, in THIS post, it was "1 1/5 MILLION messages average for
"military traffic" in 1955", so you've even further diluted your
original boasts.
Before long you'll be claiming how you saved the Postal Service
because you licked a stamp to send mom and dad a letter.
And you still haven't explained how what happened at ADA a
half-century
ago has any relevance to ham radio today.
Here's one more analogy to your alleged logic:
Inexpensive calculators have been around for a couple of decades now.
Almost nobody in business or the professions relies on manual
arithmetic anymore - even the smallest businesses, for example, use
electronic cash registers to do the calculations.
Where such manual calculation was once done, it has been completely
replaced by electronic methods. Manual calculation
is too slow, too error-prone, and too dependent on human skill.
Therefore, we should not require anyone to learn how to do such
calculations as addition, subtraction, multiplication or division,
let
alone square roots or other techniques.
That's what you're saying. And it's nonsense.
A...yup!
73
Steve, K4YZ