From: on Tues, Oct 3 2006 3:25 pm

wrote:
From: Nada Tapu on Sat, Sep 30 2006 2:23 pm
On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 20:56:08 -0400, wrote:

Another thing outmoded is the strict "necessity" to use
a formalism in "procedure" AS IF it was "professional"
radio. That formalism was established between 50 to 70
years ago.

What "formalism" do you mean, Len?

1. The "official" 'Radiogram' form sold by the ARRL
for use in "official" message relay by amateurs.
Obvious play-acting AS IF the amateur relay was
by "official" means a la Western Union or similar
REAL telegraphic message. :-)

2. The monotonic HI HI HI on voice to denote a 'laugh.'
Done with little or no inflection and hardly normal
to genuine laughter. [jargon from telegraphic
shorthand where inflection and tonality of real
laughter is not possible]

3. Gratuitous signal level and readability "reports"
to other stations AS IF they were solidly received
when they are not.

4. Carrying over many, many "Q" code three-letter
shorthands from telegraphy on voice where the plain
words would have worked just as well. Jargon use
has the appearance of being a "professional" service
but it is just jargon, a juxtaposition of short-hand
used in different modes.

5. The seeming inability to express anything but in a
flat monotone on voice, despite the subject (if any)
under discussion. Most of the time such voice
contacts seem devoid of the transmitting operator's
ability to convey any emotion beyond boredom.

6. The over-use of call signs instead of legal names
in non-radio conversation, communication, and image
displays...AS IF the license grantee were a REAL
radio station or radio broadcaster.

7. The non-radio self-definition of a licensee as being
"federally authorized radio station (or operator or
both)." Elevation of self-importance beyond what the
amateur radio license GRANT is about.

8. The non-acceptance of the word "hobby" for the real
activity of radio amateurs AS IF they were somehow
a national service to the country.

9. The falsity of redefining the word "service" (amateur
radio service, were 'service' means a type and kind of
radio activity of all) into that "national service"
akin to anything from a para-military occupation to an
important "resource" that would always "save the day
when all other infrastructure communications services
'failed'."

10. The falsity of assuming that amateur radio is
PRIMARILY an "emergency" communications resource.
Regardless of the pomposity of many self-righteous
amateurs and thousands of words and redefinitions
written, the amateur radio service is still an
avocational radio activity done for personal
pleasure WITHOUT pecuniary compensation.


Amateur radio is among the least formal radio services I know.

Besides listening-only to radio broadcasting service,
what DO you "know" about OTHER radio services?

You know NOTHING of military radio. You never served, never
worked with the military. I did both as a soldier and as a
civilian.

You know NOTHING about any form of broadcasting from the
transmitting end or even studio/location procedures and
technology. I've been involved with broadcasting at the
station end since 1956.

You know NOTHING of Public Land Mobile Radio Services, never
had one. I did.

You know NOTHING of Aircraft Radio Service, protocal or
procedures, or of actual air-air or air-ground comms.
I've done that, both air-air and air-ground.

You know NOTHING of Maritime Radio Service, what goes on
and what is used. I've used it on the water, both in
harbors and inland waterways.

You MIGHT know something of Citizens Band Radio Service.
CBers out-number amateurs by at least 4:1, could be twice
that. I've been doing that since 1959.

You MIGHT know something about Personal Communications
Radio Services other than CB (R-C is not strictly a
communications mode, it is tele-command)...such as a
cellular telephone. No "call letters," "Q" codes, or
radiotelegraphy are used with cell phones. One in three
Americans has one. Do you have one. I do.


Too many olde-tymers want to PRETEND
they are pros in front of their ham rigs.

Not true, Len. We're amateurs

Don't you forget it.


And a license to use a good chunk of that spectrum has been available
without a Morse Code test for more than 15 years. But you have not
taken advanatage of it.

I have USED my COMMERCIAL radio operator license to operate
on FAR MORE EM SPECTRUM than is allocated to amateurs. LEGAL
operation. In most cases of such work NO license was required
by the contracting government agency. [the FCC regulates only
CIVIL radio services in the USA, NOT the government's use]

When did YOU "legally" operate below 500 KHz? Have you EVER
operated on frequencies in the microwave region? [other than
causing 2.4 GHz EMI from your microwave oven] Have you
transmitted ANY RF energy as high as 25 GHz? I have
transmitted RF from below LF to 25 GHz. I have done that
since 1953...53 years ago.

What would you have me "take advantage of" in "good chunks"
of the EM spectrum? "Work DX at 10 GHz?!?" :-) :-) :-)

I've once "worked" 250,000 miles (approximately) "DX" with
a far-away station above 2 GHz but below 10 GHz. What have
YOU done above 3/4 meters? READ about it?

Oh, yes, now you are going to "reply" with the standard
ruler-spank that I did not do that with "my own"
equipment. :-)

Well, now YOU have a quandry. To use that stock "reply"
of yours you MUST define that the "taxpayer SUBSIDIZES"
anything of the government or contracted work by the
government. In your "logic" then, I really DO "own" that
equipment!

But, if you say I don't then you have to take back your
INSULT to all military servicemen and servicewomen that
they "receive a SUBSIDY from the taxpayer." I will NOT
"own that equipment" if you take that insult back.

YOU don't think your remark was an "insult." You've tried
to rationalize your way out of that three ways from Sunday
since. Well then, I "do" "own" that equipment and did get
experience using "my own" equipment!


It has exciting possibilities...except for the
rutted and mired olde-tymers unable to keep up with new
things, secure in their own dreams of youth and simple
technological environment.

Do you have a problem with youth, Len? Or simplicity?

Other than NOT ENOUGH of either, NO.

YOU are NOT young, Jimmie. Face it. You've hit the
halfway mark and are downhill all the way since.
YOU are MIDDLE-AGED, growing older.

YOU never "pioneered radio" in your life. All you did
was try to fit in to the present...and then rationalized
by implication that you somehow did some "pioneering."

You imply that you are "superior" because of achieving
an amateur extra class license largely through a test
for morsemanship. Manual radiotelegraphy hasn't been
"pioneered" by you.


The transistor was invented in 1948 - 58 years ago.

1947. The PATENT wasn't granted immediately. :-)

Amateurs were using
them in receivers and transmitters by the late 1950s.

Early. Like 1952. See QST or CQ (forget which) which
I saw at Fort Monmouth in that year. Transistors made
by Philco (?). Whatever it was, the transistors have
long been obsolete, out of production, replaced by
newer, better, cheaper types.

Jimmie, quit contradicting those who were IN the radio-
electronics industry or work who worked through all
that period. As a double-degreed whizzy something you
should KNOW that REAL PRACTICAL transistors for HF use
didn't come into being until much later than the late
1940s.

There's a whole heaping gob of documents of history of
the solid-state era, how it began, all the trouble
everyone had to make them work, to make them reliable,
to make them cheap. Much of that is now on the web.
Go do some study of something OTHER than ARRL
"radio history" for your own edification. That is,
if you can really tear yourself away from Big Brother.

To me, the history of the industry is interesting. To
you it is little more than some obscure footnote you
hunt for in order to use in messages where you claim
your respondent is "wrong" or "in error." :-)

Come back when you've actually DESIGNED some solid-state
ham radio, not just assembled a kit designed by someone
else. Use those mighty collitch degrees, all that radio-
electronics "experience" in the "industry" to show us
what you can really do. :-)