RadioBanter - View Single Post - Laying Waste to Frank Of Silliland's Silliness

September 7th 05, 07:16 PM

wrote:
Dave Heil wrote:

wrote:

wrote:

From: on Fri 2 Sep 2005 06:09

Dave Heil wrote:

Len has never worked out of band Frenchmen on 6 meters. As far as I
know, only you hold that distinction and title.

He should be PROUD of it.

Perhaps I'll petition my ARRL to come up with a new operating award.

I encourage you to follow through with your idea. It is certain to be
received with the attention it deserves.

Fantastic! An endorsement from the World's Greatest DXer. I'll
request that it be known as the "Heil Award," in your honor.

I've seen nothing to indicate an endorsement from the World's Greatest
DXer. Perhaps you received an e-mail from him. While I haven't
endorsed the idea, I have encouraged you to pursue it.

Heil believes in the good-old-boys-pecking-order-in-club-house
rule of only those tenured in licensing are "suitable" for
"leadership." Heil doesn't want to understand that ALL U.S. civil
radio is regulated and enforced by the FCC, NOT the licensees.

And the Dept. of State is a vehicle for DX destinations.

It can be, *if* you know what you're doing.

I'm sure there were lines of comm types waiting for some of your
destinations.

There may or may not have been. The number of hams working for the DOS
is quite small and not all of them have family situations which would
permit some of the tours I had. In my case, the additional pay and the
opportunity to operate in some rare spots accounted for some of my
assignments. My first tour in Helsinki was luck of the draw and my
second tour in Helsinki was a needed break (at the bottom of a solar
cycle) after three consecutive African hardship postings.

Dave, off subject - are you eligible for military hops?

No, I am not. I spent only four years in the military.

It must be close to a decade since Heil ceased being a paid
worker in the "foreign service" of the Department of State.
Absolutely NO evidence has been presented of his having learned
ANY diplomacy there.

There you go, Brian. Len's made another factual error. It won't be
five years until the end of this year.

Fair enough. Should I call him a liar at this point?

It isn't necessary. Your acknowledgement is sufficient.

Do I threaten
bricks through windows, slashed tires, terrorized wives? Maybe I need
to start a new thread about how Len might be homosexual or an idiot or
both?

That isn't necessary but if you like, you may proceed.

Do I need to do anything?

No, thanks. You've already done so.

As to learning "ANY diplomacy",

there is never an instance where an ambassador calls a communications
type and says, "We've just received news from Washington. I want you to
go to the Foreign Ministry and make a demarche".

And there you have it.

Yes, there you have it. Ambassadors, Deputy Chiefs of Mission,
Political and Economics Officers make demarches, telephone and write to
foreign ministers, presidents, prime ministers and the like.
Information Management personnel have quite different job requirements.

He was merely their messenger.

Perhaps it soothes you to cling to that belief.

In addition to sending messages, what else did you do?

I'm certain that I've outlined it before. In addition to sending
messages, I received messages. :-)

There's much more though. I operated and maintained the equipment which
took care of all of that sending and receiving. I was responsible for
the HF and VHF E&E nets and equipment. I was in charge of the embassy
telephone system and supervised the receptionists. I was responsible
for classified pouch despatch and receipt. I served as system
administrator for classified and unclassifed LAN's and was responsible
for stand alone PC's. I supervised the embassy mailroom staff. I ran
frequency clearances for VIP visits, obtained VHF frequency permits for
embassy repeater and simplex channels through the host country PTT.
There were other duties, but I'm sure you get the idea.

I'll bet
you've retold your fascinating tale of BIG TIME HF work at ADA over
fifty times. It is a story having nothing to do with amateur radio and
everything to do with Len Anderson's desire to be recognized as
somebody. Well, you're certainly recognized, Len.

I especially like Jim's recounting amateur radio's contributions during
WWII when there was no legal amateur radio operations in the USA. He
cracks me up.

Then there's Heil's thrilling tales of African adventures
where he "synchronized" State Department communications via
morsemanship in the 1980s...

He opened and closed rtty circuits with CW?

He surely did, but not on the same frequency as the RTTY circuit.

What frequency?

A different one!

claiming that "radio communications
paths were so poor that they would not support teleprinter/data
modes."

He was probably doing something wrong.

Actually, I maintained the lowest QSY rate of any AFRECONE station.

Is there an award for keeping folks on frequency too long?

No, there was an "Atta Boy" for choosing frequency pairs which did not
necessitate keeping the distant end's ops busy dialing up receivers and
retuning PA's.

That part about claiming that propagation paths were so poor that there
were times when they wouldn't support encrypted RTTY communications? It
was absolutely true. Then again, neither you nor Len know where the
other end of my circuit was. That'll just have to remain a mystery.

I've operated on encrypted circuits as well. That we lacked enough
frequencies to operate 24/7 is true.

None of that has anything to do with amateur radio...unless one
counts the entirety of the Department of State as an "amateur"
effort of foreign policy.

Do you think has an anti-U.S. Foreign Policy bias, Brian?

I -could- pretend to not understand your question, but that would be
too heilish.

I think that Len has an anti-Heil bias.

That has been obvious, but I asked about a U.S. Foreign Policy bias. He
has frequently taken pot shots at the U.S. Department of State and U.S.
Foreign Policy.

And when you apparently deny
your professional radio experience, what are we to think?

First, it would be necessary for me to agree that I've denied my
professional radio experience. I've not done so, but I've not done
anything like Len's repetitive recounting of his ADA operations of a
half-century back.

I think that
you choose to not recognize your professional radio experience because
it might get in the way of your denigrations of Len.

It isn't really relevant to amateur radio operation. My story dealing
with the use of CW in Guinea-Bissau was strictly to counter Len's
assertion that the U.S. Government was no longer using morse. He was
wrong. He made a factual error.

"Sorry Len, State Dept. Communications IS Amateur Radio!" Hi,
hi!

You wrote it. It is your quote. Don't be surprised if you see it again.

"Hi, hi!" A joke. You're welcome to bring it up again at anytime - as
a joke.

I just don't expect to see you writing somewhere down the line, that I'd
written such a goofy statement. Let's be clear that it is *your* statement.

Tsk. In other government radio, the U.S. military has maintained
teleprinter/data networks 24/7 in equatorial regions as well as
elsewhere some THIRTY YEARS PRIOR to Heil's tale of inability to
get a State Department radio circuit working. [Asmara, Eritrea,
was the principal relay point for DCS/Starcom/ACAN linkage of
Manila, Phillipines, to Pirmasens, FRG, kept open on 24/7 basis
from 1948 to about 1978...Asmara can be considered to be in the
"equatorial region" of the African continent]

I would consider it so. But I only have a degree in Geography.

With that degree, you'd likely be able to figure that Bissau and
Freetown are across the continent from Asmara. When my old colleagues
speak of the "West African Echo" they don't include East Africa. Go
figure. I didn't work into nor did I work through Asmara. The missing
piece of the puzzle for both of you is the location of the station I
worked into. Good luck.

Ascension.

I only wish I was at liberty to tell you.

Heil is of the dictatorial view that ONLY licensed radio amateurs
are worthy of commenting/talking/discussing ANYTHING about amateur
radio...the "clubhouse" syndrome. Of course, such an attitude
would NEGATE U.S. government regulation and enforcement of amateur
radio since no Commissioner or FCC staffer is required to hold any
amateur radio license grants.

That's a dichotomy in thinking of Heil as a former employee of the
U.S. government. It's also friggin' WEIRD.

Len has discussed. Len had commented. I'm guessing that Len has
talked, though there's no evidence of it here. Len has insulted. Len
has denigrated. Len has belittled.

I agree. Has Len been insulted? denigrated? belittled?

If there's a God in Heaven, he has.

As to the FCC staffer schpiel, it has been previously addressed a number
of times. Len isn't an FCC staffer, nor is he a radio amateur.

Nor are most FCC staffers, even the ones dealing directly with amateur
radio.

That's right. They're paid to do a job, whether they participate in
some radio service or not. Len isn't a participant and he isn't a
regulator.

Heil may have spent too much time in the basement with his radios.

Now *that* would be weird. My hamshack consists of two, adjacent second
floor rooms.

You told us you lived in a tarpaper shack.

There's tarpaper under there somewhere.

Heil (who claims to be a linguist of Hunnish) forgot, in another
post, that the fictious name of "Dudley" was used by author Earnest
K. Gann in his book, "Fate Is The Hunter." [my mention in here]
Frank Gilliland and I used another fictitious name of "Dudly" in
reference to another, a military pretender in here. There was no
misspelling of "Dudley" at all, just the use of "Dudly" to
differentiate from Gann's original name use. A shortened form of
"Dudly" is "Dud" which also fits that other, the pretender.

I see. It must be like your use of "Atila" to differentiate between the
real "Attila" and your use of "beligerent" to differentiate between real
warlike "belligerants". The name "Dudley" is an actual name. The name
"Dudly" doesn't exist. Very UNPROFESSIONAL, Leonard; very UNPROFESSIONAL.

It's less unprofessional than working out of band Frenchmen on 6
meters, IMHO.

Heil attempts to word-play in a puerile game of trying to be the
schoolmistress rapping the knuckles of "students" who make minor
"typographical" errors in spelling.

Dave is smug.

I certainly can be from time to time.

From time to time?

Len used a couple of words three
or more times each. He spelled them in the same incorrect way each
time. They were not typographical errors. They were Len's spelling
errors. Did you know that Len claims to be a PROFESSIONAL writer?

Aye. You should see my son's textbooks....

Did Len write them?

I did not mention any Hun
who wishes to conquer any ham world, only that Heil attempts to be
a master of Hunnish language and the only "judge" on translations
of Hunnish to English.

Dave must be multi-lingual.

If the word belligerent is based in Latin, then I am. Len seems to
think it was used by Attila and his horde.

What word would attila have used?

I dunno. Only Len has stated that I claim to be an expert in "Hunnish".
I'd capitalize "Attila" though.

Dave K8MN