AF6AY wrote:
Michael Coslo wrote on Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:36:39 EST:

AF6AY wrote:
Michael Coslo wrote on Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:00:40 EST:

Do we HAVE to 'attract new blood?' Serious question.
We do need new people to replace those who leave for one reason or the
other. I want someone to talk to on the other end, and don't want the
Amateur radio community to become closed and eventually die out.

That seems a tad premature to me. At present there are 722K TOTAL
licensees and the expiration rate is roughly 27K/year. If that
keeps up without any newcomers, it would be 26.7 years before all
were gone. [of course there will be newcomers...but how many
depends on the attitude of the old-timers they come in contact with]

... We are NOT required to DO certain
things in the hobby just because some old-timers say we MUST
do those besides the regulations that all must obey.
I'm fortunate that I never had that experience. Of course, if someone
ever did tell me how I was supposed to use my time in the hobby, I think
I would politely decline, and go do what I wanted to do. 8^)

Well, from my experience (at work or at play) I've had some
who INSISTED on telling me what I 'should' be doing. Some
of those got rather antagonistic about it. "We don't DO that
kind of thing in fill-in-the-blank" kind of comment. It was
so prevalent among amateur radio licensees that I encountered
that it turned me off of bothering to get a license for a long
time. That's been my experience over the last half century and
I spent that time working IN the electronics industry.

I'll have to say that the above attitude was reflected in the
older amateur-radio-interest newsgroups and was partly due to
the creation of rec.radio.amateur.moderated.

... I don't know if you were watching
the group a few weeks ago, but I related a story about an emergency comm
person speaking at a club meeting.

I was 'reading the mail' but didn't bother with it much. :-)

When a member noted that the ARS
frequencies were there for use after the normal comms weren't working,
he replied " Every thing we do is a matter of life and death, so we can
use your frequencies any way we wish".

That was not only wrong, but scary that people that think in that manner
are coming into the hobby with such an attitude.

That person was more right than wrong. If one bothers to look,
the small-number Parts of Title 47 C.F.R. state clearly that
ANYONE can use ANY radio frequency to call for assistance if
a situation is really life or death...licensed or not. True.

It has to be life and death, and keep in mind that Law enforcement is
happy to make that determination after the fact - and has in some cases.
The thing that had people concerned in this case was the "anything" message.

some snippage

Radio amateur licensees are not bound JUST to what Part 97
says. The whole of Title 47 applies, even if 99+% has nothing
directly to do with the amateur radio service. But, with REAL
life-and-death situations, anyone can use any frequency at any
time with or without any license.

He (and some like him)
come in to talk to the people who will be building and maintaining
repeaters and infrastructure, and lay one like that on them?

Let's take that IN context. Consider that the attending radio
amateurs might ALSO have an 'attitude' going. Consider that
lots of government infrastructure radio facilities are kept
going 24/7 expressly FOR the purpose of life-and-death comms
needs. Amateur radio repeaters aren't. Amateur repeaters
are there primarily for the benefit of other amateurs.

One of the issues that has come up in the post Katrina world is that a
number of public service agencies have had their employees get Ham radio
licenses. All well and good, and probably an end run around getting
hobbyists to help, since the employee hams will already be on the job.

Problem is, the new hams in many cases are just looking for another
communication channel, and are not interested in radio as radio. Even
this is okay. But.. The problem that arises is that there is an
expectation the people who are interested in the hobby and its technical
issues are going to keep everything up and running.

Even then, many of us with that ability are willing to pitch in.


But the big question is who becomes liable if that repeater fails? I
think that in many ways, Ham radio emergency operations are tending to
become employees who also have a ham license. And their interests are
more in the line of what they do best - save lives, not put up repeaters.

- 73 de Mike N3LI -