RadioBanter - View Single Post - Is the code requirement really keeping good people out of ham radio?

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wrote:
From: Jimmie D on Tues, Oct 17 2006 7:46 pm
wrote in message
From: Nada Tapu on Sat, Sep 30 2006 2:23 pm
On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 20:56:08 -0400, wrote:

Total agreement here, our obligation of service to to earn our privlegdes
doesnt end with what we have done but with what we have done lately.

Sorry, but I see absolutely NO "obligation to perform
some service [to the nation or community]."

That you don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

That is one
of the myths promulgated by the ARRL and its followers.

Where? You have just spouted a falsehood, Len.

The word "service" used by the FCC all throughout Title
47 C.F.R., all Parts, is a regulatory term referring to
a type and kind of radio activity being regulated.
[see Citizens Band Radio SERVICE or Radio Control Radio
SERVICE as two examples in Part 95] Also, as Cecil Moore
mentioned, the government is doing its citizens a service,
NOT the other way around.

Irrelevant.

If an individual WANTS to VOLUNTARILY perform some service,
then excellent. There is NO "obligation" to do so unless
there is some law requiring it.

What about a moral obligation?

Suppose I were driving on a winding country road and came upon the
scene of a one-car accident that had occurred only a few minutes before
I arrived.

And suppose the occupants of the car in the accident needed help, and I
had the means to call for help.

Would I not have at least a moral obligation, if not a legal one, to
call for help?

Suppose the only available communication was by Amateur Radio - would I
not have at least a moral obligation, if not a legal one, to use
Amateur Radio to call for help?

Personally, I think all
citizens of the USA should do at least one term of Jury
Service.

Even those who are not mentally or physically competent to do so? Would
you want to be judged by a jury composed of the mentally ill? They're
citizens.

In California there is a state law that eligible
citizens shall serve, for a time and times as stated by
law. [I've done five terms of Jury Service here] Anyone
who WANTS to voluntarily sit in on a court is allowed to
(with some special conditions not permitting certain
trials). Those spectators are NOT obligated to do so.

Irrelevant.

USA amateur radio service is a VOLUNTARY activity. It is
an avocation, not an occupation. In other words it is a
HOBBY.

But it's not just a hobby.

It's a fine hobby, tens of thousands of citizens
engaged in it.

Hundreds of thousands of US citizens.

But, it is still a HOBBY. It is NOT
"essential" for the good of the nation.

Says who?

It is high time
that everyone quit dreaming about imaginary glory of
"serving the community" through amateur radio...time to
look at what it IS in the real world.

Does amateur radio not perform any service to the community, Len?