On Wed, 27 Jun 2007 21:33:10 EDT, RDWeaver
wrote:

The model of a single dominant national radio club isn't unique to the
US --- in fact it seems to be the worldwide model. Britain has RSGB,
Germany has DARC, Japan has JARL, Australia has WIA, China has CSRA,
France has REF-Union, Russia has SSR, and so on. These are all large
countries with healthy populations of licensees, but each with only
one "substantial" national radio club.

I still hold membership in the Israel Amateur Radio Club, the
voluntary-membership national club (I was 4X4UQ in the '60s).

It would be an interesting study to determine why this worldwide model
of a single dominant national radio club has so consistently evolved.

It is interesting to note that in some of those countries, one has to
be a member of the club to be licensed, and only the club gave the
license exams.

When the question of privatizing the license testing came up at the
FCC in the 80s, I pointed out this anomaly to the manager who was
dealing with it (Elliot Ours, one of the best folks whom I had the
opportunity to work with) and questioned whether we were going down
that route. I was told to "shut up and deal" to use a common humorous
phrase of the time. The agency was hell-bent to privatize as much as
it could and "damn the torpedoes".
--

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

e-mail: k2asp [at] arrl [dot] net