On Jan 31, 8:19 pm, wrote:

Over a number of years they succeeded in all but eliminating the
concept of the skilled, knowledgeable, *licensed* Radio Operator. Saved
lots of money and aggravation. All we have left now are pieces of the
old rules and requirements.

Some might say that the new technologies no longer required specialized
Radio Operators, and in some cases that's probably true. But I think
the dismantling of commercial Radio Operator licensing was more about
the deregulation for the sake of bigger profits rather than the lack of
need for operators.

This part of the history touches upon a issue that I think fits under
the "law of unintended consequenses."

I came into Amateur radio as a digital guy who wanted to learn about
radio This may give me a different perspective.. A lot of Hams,
especially those who have been Hams for a long time, seem to
inadvertently downplay just what knowledge is needed to be an
effective communicator in wireless. You see this in their comments
about some supposed ease in getting a license, among others. I'm here
to tell you that the art and science of making a communications link
between randomly "chosen" areas, and all the electronics that that
entails, is a matter that takes some serious education and/or
experience.

Yet time after time, the systems that we come up with just fail. And
the problem is always that the best laid plans to take the skilled
operator out of the link fail. The reason is pretty simple. The effort
to remove the decisions that an educated operator would make add
infrastructure to the system. When the wheels com off, the
infrastructure fails. The same forces that destroy, flood, and freeze
the victims of disaster also have an effect on the infrastructure that
is in place to rescue them.

On the commercial radio operator demise part, I'd have to say that you
want to listen in my area to hear the results. One company owns all
the radio stations in my area, with the exception of the Public
station.. The only one I bother to listen to other than the Public
station is the local ESPN sports station. They regularly go off the
air for long periods of time, play the satellite feed message, or my
favorite, play two feeds at once. The funny thing is that the most
listened to station in the area is guess who, the public station. They
still have engineers, they still monitor their output, and they
actually take input from their listeners.

That deregulation, that getting rid of skilled employees, did it work
when we have 8 or 9 stations that are horribly undependable, and most
everyone, even people who hate to admit it, listen to the public radio
station?

- 73 de Mike N3LI -