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Differences..!
Bill Horne wrote on Sat 3 May 2008 under the thread 'Discussions' in
RRAM: The Pave/Paws system that is pushing some repeaters off 70cm predates the complaints by several decades, and I take the military's new attitude to be another nail in the coffin of ham radio's former "favorite son" status at the Pentagon. As a veteran of the US Army Signal Corps 1952 to 1960 and as an engineer who has been involved in DoD electronics during my civilian career, I've seen NO evidence that US amateur radio was ever in some "favorite son" status in the US military. It used to be that we hams were a corps of operators who could be pressed into service quickly during a war or other crisis. Perhaps this was true in 1941. It was NOT true in 1952 when I voluntarily entered US Army service (during the Korean War active phase), trained at the Signal School at Fort Monmouth, NJ, and subsequently assigned to long-distance, high-volume message traffic handling on a 24/7 basis at a Far East Command Hq station in Tokyo. I served in that assignment for three years, had access to documents and reports on communications within the military and queried many on the (then) modern methods of communications by radio. From the military point of view of 56 years ago, having an interest in radio or the more general electronics field is only important towards assignment in a particular military occupation specialty (still familiarly called 'MOS'). Knowing on-off keying CW skills via amateur radio MIGHT get one assigned to Field Radio school (then the only Army MOS actually requiring OOK CW skill). Field Radio MOS then involved using HF from a truck-transportable station that was also equipped with teleprinters; teleprinted messaging was the norm in the Korean War (active phase '50-'53). The MAJORITY of 'radio' communications back then, a half century ago, was by VOICE and that over line-of-sight ranges. Military radio plans in the field were already organized into three overlapping radio bands from high HF into low VHF, the bands subdivided for infantry-artillery-armor unit use. No one needed any morse code skills to operate those radios then. Indeed, it was more akin to one-way talking on a telephone, something that most civilians had already done in the 1950s. Now, with Morse as deeply buried as its creators and military electronics too secret to be entrusted to soldiers and sailors who haven't been vetted for security clearances, we're yesterday's news in the E ring. I have NOT seen any of that "burial" nor of the "secrecy" alleged to any Pentagon "ring" in my Army service nor in the many years that followed as a civilian working on DoD contracts involving communications. The "secrecy" is actually on a very low Confidential level, the lowest of the three classifications. As a matter of fact, most Army radios of a half century ago where NOT used by signal personnel nor did they ever require any sort of security classification; no more so than revealing ANY military information to the enemy on anything. I have no personal knowledge of what actually transpires in ANY "ring" of the Pentagon. I must depend on periodicals and documents published by defense electronics and electronics professional associations to yield such information. In those, and in archived copies of "Signal" (a quarterly of the Army Signal Corps, available new to signal personnel) there has been NO such statements of any "favoritism" expressed from a half century ago to today. SECRECY in communications is regularly carried out today by UNvetted "soldiers and sailors" using a variety of cryptologically embedded (but selectable) means within radios. The standard small-unit (battalion or below) field radio is the SINCGARS family operating 30 to 88 MHz. The first SINCGARS went operational in 1989, almost two decades ago. Over 300,000 R/Ts basic to the AN/PRC-119 man-pack transceiver have been built by ITT, Fort Wayne, IN. More are available in HTs built by other firms plus the contracts awarded to Harris Corporation for newer, smaller SINCGARS-compatible multi- band radios. All of that family have their coding set by a "hopset" entry (encryption key and frequency-hopping sequence settings) which IS controlled by a "vetted" signal officer. The actual coding method is digital, beginning with a pseudo-random sequence generator involving digital feedback of a digital shift register could be known by an unfriendly...but the permutations of possible keys is so large that it is impractical for them to carry around super- computers in the field to defeat the cryptology in time to be effective. Note: The electronics technology to do all that has been known (and most things published about it openly) for over three decades, some of it public for four decades. In short, today's US military CAN use very robust, secure codes to allow UNvetted military personnel to communicate. They have had the capability to do so for nearly two decades. PAVE PAWS has been around for decades. It is in the technology classification using multiple receivers to decrease the antenna beam width with an ability to enhance phase shifting of the incoming wavefront (allows other processing refinements of returns). Anyone can gather information on its general technological structure. Since it IS primary in its assigned operating frequency and IS part of National Defense, that National Defense ought to be considered primary by US citizens who wish to survive. Is a radio hobby more important than national survival? We'll have to find another reason to justify the allocations we enjoy. It's going to be hard work, and not nearly as easy as learning Morse (not that that would help now). We're going to have to get better - in fact, much better - at public relations: the Red Cross and other disaster relief agencies have known the importance of image all along, but now hams have got to get in the game and advertise ourselves as an anlternative to traditional communications during hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, etc. Please leave the morse code test issue OUT. That has been settled for US amateur radio by the FCC after much, much debate for too long a time. IMAGE for the general public MUST be aimed OUTSIDE of amateur radio publications. It cannot remain the insider topic WITHIN amateur radio groups or publications. If it is REALLY there then it could (and should) get out into the mainstream. Such emergency good works news just haven't gotten out to the general public. The public sees FCC issues as they affect broadcasting and cell phones in the national news. maybe something about business radio of public safety radio. Amateur radio news is not an important issue for such media. The public has rarely seen amateur radio communications during emergencies during national news...it HAS seen various National Guard units and local government agencies doing communications on the news, including FEMA equipment (going back to 1994 and the Northridge Earthquake in January with quickly-transported video message displays relayed by satellite for their own health-and-welfare messages seen in handwriting of senders and shown on local TV). I'm not going to comment on the Katrina hurricane situation. That involves many more NON-amateur radio policies among local and state agencies. The Katrina hurricane happened over two years ago and the USA has had more emergencies since then. Rehashing the Katrina situation does NO good in attempting to get the word out to the general public about amateur radio. If ham radio is really as good as some declare it, it should be worth national attention. It has gotten very little on the national news in the last half century. QED. One thing that should NOT continue is to keep thinking in the paradigms of pre-WWII 'radio' as is often presented in amateur radio magazines. Technology has gone through several plateau jumps of advancement since that long-ago time. Fantasies of some amateur radio licensees are still rooted to back then. Those are lost in the reality of today's radio capabilites and uses. The general public has its own fantasies and it is foolish to attempt trying to tell them other fantasies. Amateur radio is a HOBBY. Let's try to focus on that. Model vehicles are a hobby for others. The Academy of Model Aeronautics doesn't pretend to advance the state of the art of aviation but it was successful in lobbying for a hundred frequency channels for radio-control two decades ago. Consider that hobbyists are citizens and that the US government does listen to its citizens. Work from that basis. Leonard H. Anderson AF6AY (Life Member) |
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Differences..!
On May 5, 8:38�pm, AF6AY wrote:
One thing that should NOT continue is to keep thinking in the paradigms of pre-WWII 'radio' as is often presented in amateur radio magazines. What paradigms do you mean? �Technology has gone through several plateau jumps of advancement since that long-ago time. In some areas, that's true, but in others (such as simple practical HF antennas and transmission lines) things haven't changed very much. �Fantasies of some amateur radio licensees are still rooted to back then. �Those are lost in the reality of today's radio capabilites and uses. �The general public has its own fantasies and it is foolish to attempt trying to tell them other fantasies. Could you give some specific examples of the paradigms you mean, the "plateau jumps" in technology, and the fantasies you describe? Amateur radio is a HOBBY. �Let's try to focus on that. Amateur radio isn't *just* a hobby, though. The record of public service communication by radio amateurs shows there is a lot more to it, to give just one example. Model vehicles are a hobby for others. �The Academy of Model Aeronautics doesn't pretend to advance the state of the art of aviation but it was successful in lobbying for a hundred frequency channels for radio-control two decades ago. Let's consider that idea in detail... Model control radio frequencies consist of those 100 channels near 70 MHz. Power output is limited to 1 watt and the transmitting antenna can be no larger than a quarter-wave monopole. Model control isn't about using radio for its own sake, which IMHO is the heart-and-soul of amateur radio. Model control is about using radio for a single purpose, as a means to an end. Does anyone think amateur radio should be limited by rules similar to those for model control? Or that the kind of allocations given to model-control enthusiasts would be adequate for amateur radio? �Consider that hobbyists are citizens and that the US government does listen to its citizens. �Work from that basis. It seems to me that you are saying that radio amateurs should not talk about their roles in emergency communication (Hurricane Katrina, for example), public service communication (New York City Marathon), experimentation (K3TUP and cancer research), education (Space Shuttle hams), etc. IOW, all that should be deemphasized and ignored. It seems to me that you're saying we hams should define ourselves as hobbyists *only*, and expect that to be the sole reason we have amateur bands and FCC/ITU protection. Is that correct? Jim, N2EY |
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