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

Dave Heil · October 20th 06, 04:15 AM posted to rec.radio.amateur.policy

wrote:
From: on Thurs, Oct 19 2006 4:41 am

wrote:
From: Jimmie D on Tues, Oct 17 2006 7:46 pm
wrote in message

I don't know the state of your supposed goody-two-shoes "morals"
but I would imagine that law enforcement folks WILL want to
know WHY you are driving on winding country roads at night?

Well, Len, I drive on winding country roads at night quite frequently.
In six years, the police have never been curious as to why I was driving
on such a road. Is there some sort of prohibition in your area?

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?

You will NATURALLY do so using radiotelegraphy. :-)

Your "morality" is all tied up in some obsessive knot having
to do with morse code telegraphy...for AMATEURS.

So, law enforcement folks will still want to know WHY you
forcing other cars off the winding country roads...is it to
play 'rescueman' on your little hobby radio?

Is this some profile fulfillment thing on your part, Len?
How would you handle the reporting of an accident. Would you use your
little cellular phone? If you lived out my way, you wouldn't be able
to. You'd have to be at least fifteen or sixteen miles away for the
cellular phone to work. If you drove the other direction, it'd be
twenty or thirty miles.

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?

Tsk, tsk, tsk, California state law is strict about WHO
can be on a jury panel. The mentally ill won't be on one.
Neither will previously-convicted felons.

However, the mentally-challenged have managed to keep the
morse code test in place by lobbying the FCC about it. So
far.

You lobbied the FCC about it. You submitted plenty of material. What
happened?

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.

Sorry, it IS...despite the imaginary pipe-dreaming of being
some kind of 'hero' rescuing folks in times of disaster or
reading ARRL news squibs and associating that imagination
with some 'vital service to the nation' or other pap.

Just point us to anywhere in Part 97 where the word "hobby" is used.
A single instance will be fine.

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

Hundreds of thousands of US citizens.

Including the MENTALLY ILL. :-)

That's right, Len. I'll bet there are some mentally ill folks driving
cars out near you. I'll bet some live in your neighborhood. The law
says that they may roam freely unless they are judged to be a danger to
themselves or others. Why, we've even got one of the local crazies
posting here.

Certainly the over-imaginative self-deluded souls who
describe themselves as 'heroes' without ever doing ONE
thing to PROVE their 'heroism.' :-)

Was that a joke, Len? Who has done that here? Does your sphincter post
count?

Dave K8MN