On Jan 30, 8:03�pm, "
wrote:
"Bob Brock" wrote in message
"Dee Flint" wrote in message
"Bob Brock" wrote in message
On 28 Jan 2007 13:11:46 -0800, " wrote:
So, to bring this back on topic. I wonder if the intent of the average ham
is to make ham radio grow or to maintain a stale status quo? *The way I
see it, a steady increase in qualified hams is a good thing. *Ham radio
needs a good infusion of new blood and the no-code tech license as a good
start. However, it was only the beginning.

It will be very tough to grow ham radio. *We've "saturated the market" so to
speak. *If you check around the internet (for example, Speroni's site is
one), you can find the statistics on a few of the other countries. *We have
2 hams per thousand people while Europe is running more like 1 ham per
thousand people. *While we need to actively recruit, there just aren't a lot
of people out there that are inclined to amateur radio as a part of their
leisure pursuits. *We will have to recruit hard just to stay at the current
level. *It would not surprise me if our numbers dropped in half over the
next decade or so before leveling out.

* *Dee, I give you astandingovationfor admitting that!

* *At last, an amateur extra licensee besides Hans Brakob
* *who admits what has been visible for years.

* *The old paradigms are no longer worth a pair of pennies.

Which old paradigms, Len?

What should the old paradigms be replaced with?

* *"Ham radio" needs to look at itself and its standards
* *very, very carefully.

Agreed.

Which standards should be changed?

* *The ARRL just doesn't have it to REALLY promote the hobby.
* *It hasn't had it for years. *

What would you have them do that is not being done now?

The ONLY promotion comes from
* *relatively-isolated (from League hierarchy) groups who have
* *actively pursued promotion themselves. *

Who are these groups? What are they doing that ARRL is not?

One of the most visible promotions of amateur radio is Field Day.
Every
club Field Day I have seen in the past 20+ years has made a point of
setting up in a public place, handing out literature, getting
themselves in the local papers and sometimes on TV.

Field Day is sponsored by the ARRL.

ARRL's main
* *"interest" is promoting its (de facto) business of selling
* *publications. *It IS a multi-million-annual-income
* *corporation despite what Believers say is "non-profit."

The ARRL is more than a publisher, Len.

* *The League must CHANGE its political position. *Radically.

Why?

And how should it change?

* *Singing to the chorus of other amateurs about how good they
* *are is what the League leaders may want...but it is off-
* *putting to the majority. *Either they show REAL leader-
* *ship as a membership organization and get with the
* *mainstream or just be a publisher of niche activities.

What would constitute "REAL leadership"?

Who was it that led the fight against BPL?

* *There really isn't much choice for them. *They've resisted
* *and resisted and resisted BASIC changes to amateur radio
* *activity for years. *

Which changes?

As a result they've NOT increased
* *their membership by any worthwhile amount for years. *The
* *largest amateur radio licensee class is Technician. *It's
* *been that way for years...yet the League just shines off
* *that easily-observable fact.

I don't think they do. There are plenty of ARRL publications
aimed at VHF/UHF, satellites, repeaters, meteor scatter, and
other non-HF activities. QST has a considerable number of
articles aimed at Technicians.

* *Those who really and truly LIKE amateur radio MUST resist
* *the very-strong temptation to act as all-around extra
* *"superiors" and demand "respect" for credentials earned
* *in amateurism at the same time they are looking down their
* *noses at others.*Despite how much they think of themselves
* *and other olde-tymers, their personal standards are NOT
* *shared by others, the mainstream. *

Who are these "mainstream" folks, Len?

What should the standards be?

They MUST learn that
* *not all "newbies" MUST get into amateur radio as teen-
* *agers. *They MUST learn that teen-agers have many MORE
* *diversions of very interesting activities AVAILABLE.
* *Not the latest fad interest or popular entertainment but
* *very real electronic activities that don't touch on
* *radio...or, if it does touch on radio, that radio is very
* *much more and farther from the traditional HF "short-
* *wave" in the real world. *It is what IS, not what
* *individual olde-tymers want to preserve, that intangible
* *wonder of something shown to them long, long ago.

US Amateur radio is, and always has been, open to interested people
of all ages. The efforts to interest young people are in recognition
of
the fact that young people don't have the financial and other
resources
of adults.

* *I don't have the answers, don't pretend to. *

You're demanding change without saying what the changes should be,
nor what the desired results are. That doesn't make sense.

But, I can
* *SEE what has happened, SEE cause-and-effect, and do not
* *PRETEND that "radio" has remained static since the first
* *olde-tymers "discovered" it.

Nobody is pretending that radio has remained static. And your
claims of cause-and-effect aren't proven. Correlation is not
causation.

For example, the repeater boom of the late 1970s-mid-1990s brought a
lot
of people into amateur radio who were looking for a personal radio
communications
service. They were looking for a radio service that was better behaved
and more reliable than cb, for local/regional personal communications.
The Technician license was their ticket, and became even more popular
when its written test was simplified (1987) and lost its Morse Code
test (1991).

We got a lot of new hams that way. Some became interested in things
beyond the local repeater - some did not. But with the introduction of
inexpensive cell phones, plus FRS/GMRS, that source of new hams has
all but disappeared.

Losing that source of new amateurs is one reason for the lack of
growth in US amateur radio.

* *I'm not an amateur. *I'm a professinal in electronics.
* *Yet, I've been a hobbyist in electronics since before
* *most of you readers existed. *I've seen the whole of
* *electronics ("radio" is a subset of that) CHANGE radically
* *in my lifetime. *

Len, perhaps you should take your own advice:

"MUST resist the very-strong temptation to act as all-around extra
"superiors" and demand "respect" for credentials earned
......at the same time they are looking down their
noses at others. Despite how much they think of themselves
and other olde-tymers, their personal standards are NOT
shared by others, the mainstream."

I've also seen that younger olde-tymers
* *bitterly resist change, change that they cannot control.

Not all changes are for the better, Len. Is it wrong to resist
changes?

For example, the traditional single-family detached house used to be
the
"standard" home that most Americans wanted to buy. It was considered
the most desirable.
But in recent decades, alternative home forms have become popular,
such as condominiums, homes with in-law suites, etc. More and more
American homeowners do
not own a single-family detached house. The old paradigms don't work
for them,

Yet some people bitterly resist the zoning changes that would
accomodate the new
era of real estate.

See the parallels?

* *Those who resist change can alter the course of future
* *amateur radio by simply causing its stagnation and
* *eventual demise.

Again, not all change is for the better. Unless someone
can make a good case for exactly why a particular change is
needed, why should it be supported?

* *Too bad I'm on your "kill list."

Len, it's a very safe bet that the reason you are on Dee's "kill list"
is because
of *your* behavior here. IMHO, Dee simply got tired of your name-
calling, various
forms of insult, and factual errors. She can correct me if I'm wrong -
but I don't think I am.

*We might have had a
* *real conversation here on this.

Len, your behavior here indicates that such a "real conversation"
would
only last until Dee disagreed with you. It's a safe bet that at the
first real
challenge to your statements, you'd start with the name-calling ("Mama
Dee"),
and the various insults, diversions, and factual errors.

*But, no, I have been
* *categorized as "inferior" or "unworthy" or, as one
* *put it in the past, "just horrid!" * :-)

There's a good reason why, Len. And for once, it *is* all about you.

--

Now you will do one of two things: either ignore this post entirely,
or
respond to it in your usual manner, with name-calling, insults, etc..
The one thing you *won't* do is respond in a civil fashion, answer
the questions I posed, or even call me by my first name and/or
callsign.

Jim, N2EY