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September 11th 05, 09:30 PM

wrote:
Dave, what ever happend to the Civil Defense organization. It seems
like it vanished without a wimper during the 1970s, and now that we
need CD more than ever it appears to have been dismantled by a bunch of
hired, paid by the hour, contractors like Charnoff (sp?) and Mike
Brown.

Harry C.

I'm going to post this as a question that I am answering to one of my
Congressmen. Then again, most congressmen don't even know what a ham
operator is. They probably don't know what usenet is. Too bad for them.

=================

Harry,

You ask a valid question.

I don't want to get too far off topic here in r.r.a.m, but I think it is
safe to state that most hams are conservatives (hang on a second all of
you!!! hear me out!!!) in that, during a disaster, we don't wait for the
gov't to do stuff; we do it ourselves. Someday, the gov't will tell us
(and the rest of the world) how well we did. Government is a lot like a
woman's butt. You can ask any woman if you want to confirm this. The
smaller it is, the better it looks. And shall we pour money into it?

I should say up front that I have been a ham since I was 13 years old,
raised in a (R) household, but have mingled with other opinions. Got my
Novice, then General, then Advanced, and then Extra in 1983 (maybe
1984?). Got the coolest callsign available at the time by dumb luck:
Kay Zed One Oscar KZ1O. My current age is 50, this was written in 2005.

I wanted to give something back, so I helped with the testing of new
hams. I wanted to bring new hams into the hobby, so I elmered (as in, I
taught kids who wanted to get their ham license).

I ask the same questions that you did just now.

Where is the part of us that wants to jump out and help? The Civil
Defense people were really taking a risk to do what they did. Yet they
did!!

Amazing.

One thing that I keep finding, and you will also, is that ham operators
were there all the time, for free.

Now here is my question to you (and anyone else who has read this so
far): Why has the president not walked into the Rose Garden and
basically told everyone living that ham radio has been there when
everything else has failed. Is ham radio some kind of second-class
citizen that works when all else fails?

Yes, we are. We are what works when all else fails. Maybe you should
put that into your Blackberry when you can't get through.

Ham operators will make contact, no matter what.

Don't forget that. Especially when you are voting to take away
frequencies from our ham operators.

73, Best Wishes,
Dave Bushong
KZ1O

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