From: "Dee Flint" on Fri 3 Jun 2005 19:42

"KC8GXW" wrote in message
...

Look up the "Amateur's Code". I'm sure there's a copy floating around the
internet somewhere.

...including the ARRL who first published it well before WW2.

Note especially #2: "The Amateur is Loyal...He offers his
loyalty, encouragement and support for his fellow radio
amateurs, his local club, and to the American Radio Relay
League, through which amateur radio is represented."

It has been in the front of annual ARRL Handbooks in the
1970s and should be on the ARRL website now.

Oh, my, a bit self-serving the League was, wasn't it?

In the 1920s the ARRL had not yet attained their virtual
monopoly on national amateur radio membership organizations
in the USA. The ARRL was striving for being #1 then and
were starting to get ahead through the first of its many
publications. That sort of self-serving "patriotism" was
designed to (subtly) develop League Loyalty then. It's a
GOOD technique for organization survival. It WORKED.

"Through which amateur radio is represented." NOT quite a
full truth. The ARRL is most definitely NOT a true
government representative for the radio amateur. The ARRL
membership is only 1 in 5 of all radio amateur licensees.
EVERY U.S. citizen's TRUE representatives, radio amateur
or not, is their elected government officials and the FCC
itself. All of us have the perfect RIGHT to go direct to
the FCC and voice our own opinions on radio regulatory
matters. There is NO NEED (except by the ARRL itself to
survive) to use the League as an "amateur's representative"
to our government.

The ARRL "represents" ONLY the valid, licensed amateur and
then only 1 in 5. All others can forget any possibility of
"representation" to our government. That's just the way
it is...