I think Jeff - what the problem is, is that the VEC hands out Ham Radio Licenses like purple Quaalude's at a Grateful Dead Concert.

When your only goal is to increase the number of licensed amateurs, with no concern as to the education portion of the hobby, you end up with a pool of known nothing amateurs, who's only radio set up consists of a single or multiple single or dual band walkie talkies.

Even the local REACT chapter has more money invested in their cb radios and antenna's then the actual amateur radio - Technician Class license holder today.

The burden of proof is the fact that Amateur Radio Clubs in my area are being operated by people who have had their license for less then 5 years, and by people who has no actual real knowledge of how their radio actually works.

The Technology aspect of the club environment has been changed by coffee and doughnuts. " I pity the fool that gets between those club members and the coffee pot when the meeting is over!"

Because of that, most people feels that it is not necessary to join any club, or find a Elmer once you get a license. The people who holds a license isn't qualified to be a Elmer anyways. So basically these people are free to wander the earth, hopelessly lost. Not knowing what purpose Amateur Radio really serves. The ARRL, in hopes of attracting new members, says that the purpose of Amateur Radio is to do Ecom... ONLY Ecom requires training and participation and the use of more then just a simple walkie talkie.

When all else fails - amateur radio still works. - YES
But when all else fails - if your radio equipment does not work - you go hungry, Bow Wow Wow!

People sees something or they read something or they are spoon fed from the QST Magazine they get every month from their membership from the ARRL and they see the articles in the magazine, but the magazines real purpose is to sell stuff. The advertisers is what keeps the magazine going.
I say it over and over again. They are not going to say anything bad about amplifiers - because the first ad you usually see is for some type of amplifier.

People are like Tim the Toolman Taylor - More Power arugh arugh arugh!
Only there is no one around willing to stand up on the soap box and tell them that if you have a 100 watt transceiver, to move the S meter one S unit between S - 1 and S-8, you need to increase the power 4 times / hence you need 400 watts just to move the S meter one S unit.
All signals reduce at the square of the distance away!
1200 watts is only 2 S units.
Yet everyone thinks that with a 1500 watt amplifier, you are going to set the world on fire...
That's only one S Unit - if you were 10/S-9, or two S units if you were less then S-7 with 100 watts...

The stuff that Tesla was doing, would have burned the hair off your head while you stood there and looked at it.
He was able to send electricity through the air for something like 26 miles.
The reason why we don't use Tesla's model of electric transmission is due to the fact that if we did. all we would have to do is stick a antenna up in the air and receive electricity. They wouldn't even have to meter it, because it would be so cheap. The problem is - trying to get these cheap skates to pay for it.

Now think back - gee, stick a antenna in the air and receive free electricity.
Isn't that what we are doing with Amateur Radio?
Or antenna is a electrostatically charged device.
We create power when we transmit and we receive power when we receive someone else's signal..
Maybe what Tesla didn't understand was Broadcasting!
Maybe that was the reason why his coil was dismantled at the start of WW II - because the government knew that if it fell into enemy hands, it could be used to transmit anytime, day or night, globally - any information that someone wanted to send.

Even the largest transmitters of the time - such as WLW's Big Arse Transmitter couldn't compete with the one Tesla built....
http://www.ominous-valve.com/wlw.html