From: "bb" on Sun 5 Jun 2005 06:58
K4YZ wrote:
bb wrote:
wrote:
Ham radio has certainly changed since I first heard about it
back in the 40s. So many uptight folks in it now, so easily
bruised, some wanting to bully, terrorize, and FIGHT!
Perhaps, Lennie, if certain mischevious scumbags weren't
looking to "bruise" people there wouldn't be such a propensity to be as defensive.
Such as the deceitful and misleading barbs YOU disseminate in this
forum.
Guess you now think it's wrong for one to defend one's self?
No one except Ghandi thinks that. But you make every posting as if it
were a personal attack to your very being and your way of life. You
made yourself a target, an easy target, by being such an idiot about
everything. Lighten up.
:-)
These are certainly not the good people that I first met when I became
a ham. The trouble with amateur radio started with the advent of the
no-code license. People began entering the service that did not
worship at the altar of St. Hiram, and did not kneel and kisst the feet
of Extras.
The problem didn't start with the No Code test...It started almost
20 years before that with the influx of 11 meter operators via the Bash
Book route and the subsequent codification of the "open pools".
Ah, yes, the "Riff-Raff" theory. Almost 20 years ago I used the ARRL's
"Now You're Talking" and the ARRL's non-Farnsworth Code tapes to enter
the amateur radio service via "open pools" testing.
Ahem, "almost 20 years ago" would be about 1985. Class D CB
was created in 1958...FORTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO. 27 years in
between are unaccounted for in Stebie's statement.
"11 meter 'operators?'" The original "11 meter" CB users
required a license but never required any test. USERS.
Absolutely NO written form of "radio knowledge" was
required of any USER.
"Open pools?" There were "Q&A" books published before 1956
on ALL FCC written tests. BEFORE the Dick Bash publications.
That was way back in history when ALL the FCC radio regulations
were supplied as three-ring binder, loose-leaf pages.
Today's COMPLETE questions-and-answers pool is generated by
the VEC Question Pool Committee. Those answers have three
times the number of WRONG answers as there are correct ones.
The VEC QPC is composed entirely of already-licensed amateurs.
Those hams who bitch and moan about the "open" pools can go
and pish all over their ham VEC QPC "brethren" about the
questions.
The FCC requires only a MINIMUM of ten times the number of
questions for each class' written tests. There is NO LIMIT
on the MAXIMUM number of pool questions. The FCC doesn't
even require the KIND of questions...that's up to the QPC
to determine. Given the electronic distribution of text
and image material, there's not much limit on a QP size
and that could have 100 times the minimum number of
questions. The "riff-raff" aren't going to "easily pass"
by "memorizing" ALL those questions and the ONE correct
answer out of four.
Various electronic industry groups have stopped keeping
accurate tabulations on the number of "CB radios" either
imported or in-use. Some time in the past, an EIA
(Electronic Industries Association) estimated about five
million CBs "in-use." That way outnumbered the number of
oh-so-legal radio amateurs licensed at the time. Before
the FCC stopped publishing databases on PRIVATE land, sea,
and mobile radios NOT on ham bands, NOT on CB, those were
an equal number to the total of licensed radio amateurs.
There are about 100 million cellular telephone handsets
in public use (estimated from Bureau of Census reports
for 2003 on cell phone subscriptions) and the June, 2005,
issue of the IEEE Spectrum (membership magazine) states
that China has 300 million cell phones. Radios. Small
ones. Not even counting the FRS and GMRS handsets. NONE
of those requiring mighty test-taking of morse code
proficiency.
All of those non-ham radios are in use by "riff-raff?"
Dick Bash is "responsible" for all the Q&A books published
in the 1950s? Yes to all implies the mighty Stebie,
"speaker for all hams and the 'ham community'."
"Pbthpththth" says Bill the Cat. Hear the Opus.