Joel Kolstad wrote:
There is a long history of amateur radio being used to avoid expensive
commercial services: People used it for years as a replacement for long
distance telephone calls prior to those rates becoming dirt cheap. It's
almost ironic to what extent this motivates people -- international calls that
were $5/minute in 1970 are now often no more than $0.05/minute, yet there's
still plenty of interest in, e.g., Skype to reduce that to "free!" (after you
pay your fixed monthly Internet bill). Heck, these days I think that
satellite phones cost less per minute than many international calls 35 years
ago!

Here in Israel, it's long since happened. Cell phones have replaced
HT's and phone patches are a thing of the past. Even without VoIP last
fall a long distance company had unlimited calls to the U.S. and
Canada $10 a month. That offer is gone now, but the regular price is
about $.04 a minute except for the "default" carrier which is $.10
a minute, less if you "join".


Quite simply no one here really cares about ham radio anymore.
The Israel Amateur Radio Club has worked hard to keep relegious
Jews and new immegrants out of it, and the "new" generation
does not want to have to take a morse code test.


It's only a few "old guys" left. :-(

Geoff.


--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838
Visit my 'blog at http://geoffstechno.livejournal.com/