The post earlier today in RRAM about the new address on the ARRL
website for AR licensees piqued my interest.

I clicked -on the ARRL web page to look at the numbers.

One thing led to another, and I pulled up some state population
numbers of states with roughly the same populations and compared their
per-capita numbers.

Some quick numbers:

State # of hams State population Ham/resident ratio

Alaska 3466 698473 1/201
Wyoming 1696 544270 1/320
Vermont 2137 621760 1/290
Guam 487 178430 1/366
Wake Island 1 300 1/300
DC 407 599607 1/437

What I found is that there is a significant problem in Washington,DC.

There seems to be a very low number of hams in DC for the size of its
population, both absolutely and per capita.
There are less hams per capita than any other state.
Even tiny Wake Island, way out there in the Pacific Ocean, has a
higher ratio.

There are all sorts of people with professional degrees in DC,
(lawyers, accountants,journalists,etc.)i.e. all of the chattering
classes.
Why do so few of the people in DC have any interest in technical
matters that would cause them to be hams?

This led me to look at the FCC Website and the Commissioners and
their personal staffs' biographies.
It seems they are all lawyers of one type or another.
Not a one who has any technical or operational electronics
experience.

Even the Chief of Amateur Radio Enforcement does NOT have an Amateur
license.

Could this have been a significant factor in the BPL fiasco of the
last few years?

This lack of technical experience or knowledge to me is a serious
problem.

How can the Commissioners their staff's at the FCC ,NTIA, and other
federal agencies adequately manage the nations telecommunications
infrastructure if they don't have any technical experience?

What is it about DC that causes a lack of interest in technical
matters?

What can be done about this problem?
Require the FCC Commisioners to hire Engineers on their staffs like
one congressman is proposing?
Require FCC commissioners to have some technical experience?

WHAT????

I've been to DC many times (it's only 135 miles from Philly).

Here's what I've noticed about the place:

1) Many of the movers-and-shakers don't actually live in DC. They live
in VA and MD, and commute.

2) Many of those who live in DC are students, foreign nationals, etc.

3) Many of those who live in DC permanently are very poor. Crime is
high and conditions are terrible.

4) DC is essentially an urban area from border to border. Even in the
nicer parts it's not that ham-friendly compared to suburbs, small
towns and rural areas. Urban areas tend to have a lower ham
population. (How many hams actually live in Manhattan or downtown SF?

5) Regulatory agencies are usually headed by political appointees.
That's the nature of the game since Andrew Jackson described the
"spoils system." The FAA isn't run by all pilots; the FRA isn't run by
all train drivers, etc. (In fact, if the FCC were run by hams, some
might claim they had a conflict of interest).

6) There are statistical variations all over the place in the license-
counts table. The difference is 2 to 1 in the numbers you cited
between the highest and lowest hams-per-capita areas. Look at the
table other ways and you'll see other variations.

For example, compute the percentage of hams in each state that are in
each license class, and you'll see wide variations from state to
state. Last time I looked, CT had the highest percentage of Extras,
and CA had the highest percentage of Technicians. Other variations are
all over the place.

I agree that those who make the rules should have a background in what
they are making the rules for. But that sort of thing is usually left
to "staff" in my limited experience.

73 de Jim, N2EY

ai8o wrote:
The post earlier today in RRAM about the new address on the ARRL
website for AR licensees piqued my interest.

I clicked -on the ARRL web page to look at the numbers.

One thing led to another, and I pulled up some state population
numbers of states with roughly the same populations and compared their
per-capita numbers.

Some quick numbers:

State # of hams State population Ham/resident ratio

Alaska 3466 698473 1/201
Wyoming 1696 544270 1/320
Vermont 2137 621760 1/290
Guam 487 178430 1/366
Wake Island 1 300 1/300
DC 407 599607 1/437

What I found is that there is a significant problem in Washington,DC.

There seems to be a very low number of hams in DC for the size of its
population, both absolutely and per capita.
There are less hams per capita than any other state.
Even tiny Wake Island, way out there in the Pacific Ocean, has a
higher ratio.

There are all sorts of people with professional degrees in DC,
(lawyers, accountants,journalists,etc.)i.e. all of the chattering
classes.
Why do so few of the people in DC have any interest in technical
matters that would cause them to be hams?

How many of the DC professionals actually live in the District? How
many DC professionals interested in amateur radio choose to live in the
city when it might (might!) be a lot easier to put up a decent antenna
in an outlying suburb?

If you ran the numbers including both the District and ZIP codes in
adjoining Maryland and Virginia, would you get something similar to the
other states?

If you ran the numbers for not the entire state of Illinois, but just
within the city limits of Chicago, would you get something similar to
what you get for DC?

--

Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View, TN EM66

On Apr 16, 12:18 am, wrote:

If you ran the numbers for not the entire state of Illinois, but just
within the city limits of Chicago, would you get something similar to
what you get for DC?

Correct. While Washington DC is a district, for all intents and
purposes, it is a city, just like Philadelphia or New York.

And in line with what Jim had said, I'm actually surprised that there
are some many hams per non-hams.

I can under stand that there are relatively many hams in places like
Alaska. They live a lot closer to the edge of disaster than most of
us, and there's only so much infrastructure you can put in in some of
the more remote areas.

Wake Island might think about recruiting another Ham or two! 8^)

- 73 de Mike N3LI -

MAJOR SNIP

5) Regulatory agencies are usually headed by political appointees.
That's the nature of the game since Andrew Jackson described the
"spoils system."

The FAA isn't run by all pilots; the FRA isn't run by
all train drivers, etc. (In fact, if the FCC were run by hams, some
might claim they had a conflict of interest).

SNIP

I agree that those who make the rules should have a background in what
they are making the rules for. But that sort of thing is usually left
to "staff" in my limited experience.

I don't think that all the High muckey-mucks have to be all Pilots or
Train drivers, but in the FCC's case there should be one or two that
have day to day operational expererience in electronics.
Even the commisioners' staffs do not have practical experience
according to their biographies on the FCC website.

On Apr 16, 10:21 am, "Michael J. Coslo" wrote:

While Washington DC is a district, for all intents and
purposes, it is a city, just like Philadelphia or New York.

It's even more urbanized than Philadelphia, IMHO. (I've spend
considerable time in both cities).

And in line with what Jim had said, I'm actually surprised that there
are some many hams per non-hams.

I think you meant "so many hams...". I suspect that many of them are
temporary transplants (students, for example).

I can under stand that there are relatively many hams in places like
Alaska. They live a lot closer to the edge of disaster than most of
us, and there's only so much infrastructure you can put in in some of
the more remote areas.

I don't think Alaskans are "much closer" to the edge of disaster than
most of us. However, I bet they do have fewer restrictions on
antennas.

And for longer than I've been a ham, there's been the special Alaskan
emergency frequency. Might be more than a few folks who got ham
licenses just to use it.

There are probably a lot of factors that influence the number of hams
per-capita, and what they do. For example, Florida has lots of hams -
and lots of retirees.

73 de Jim, N2EY

Michael J. Coslo wrote:

And in line with what Jim had said, I'm actually surprised that there
are some many hams per non-hams.

I'm not surprised to find that there are many hams in DC

Many of the folks who list DC addresses are folks who have worked hard
to get there, They are wise and they are interested in public service.

Does this not describe ham radio operators? (Well many of us)

The qualities overlap nicely

N2EY wrote:

5) Regulatory agencies are usually headed by political appointees.
That's the nature of the game since Andrew Jackson described the
"spoils system." The FAA isn't run by all pilots; the FRA isn't run by
all train drivers, etc. (In fact, if the FCC were run by hams, some
might claim they had a conflict of interest).

Actually it is amazing the number of agencies that ARE run by hams.. Or
perhaps not so amazing when you consider a few things about Hams.

But the fact is many CEO's in many companies are hams.. Because the kind
of dedication it takes to study, not all that long ago code, plus the
law, and technical questions, these days even rocket science. The kind
of dedication it takes to pass that EXTRA CLASS license test.

Is the very kind of dedication that they look for when they hire a new
CEO or appoint a new department head.

And hams have that kind of dedication. Otherwise they'd be CBers or
SWL's or... Mundanes (A term we use in another of my hobbies)

Now.. I can tell you one origination you may wish to look at, IN fact
I'll describe two The American Diabetes Assn, and the Juvenile Diabetes
Research Foundation.

ADA is run mostly by Doctors, Nurses and other medical professionals..
They spend the majority of their funds on diabetes education teaching
diabetics (Such as myself) how to better manage our condition. This is
good work.

But when Diabetes is ever cured.. They will be out of work


JDRF is run by either Type 1 Diabetics or by parents of Type 1
Diabetics.. Now, when diabetes is ever cured they too are going to be
out of work.

But where the ADA folks will be "Woe is me, I'm out of work" the JDRF
folks won't have time for Woe cause they are going to be planing and
putting on the party to end all parties.. Cause the Dragon Mellitus (DM,
get it) has been well and truly slain!


The moral.. Some outfits are indeed run by the right people,, People who
have a very strong interest in seeing the company meet it's goals.

On Thu, 15 Apr 2010 21:23:49 EDT, ai8o wrote:

What can be done about this problem?
Require the FCC Commisioners to hire Engineers on their staffs like
one congressman is proposing?
Require FCC commissioners to have some technical experience?

WHAT????


Most professionals that work in DC live in neighboring states. Outside of
the Federal buildings DC is a ghetto.

On Thu, 15 Apr 2010 21:23:49 -0400, ai8o wrote:

The post earlier today in RRAM about the new address on the ARRL websit
e
for AR licensees piqued my interest.

What is the page, I don't see it in the ARRL letter post

--

AzzMazta's Political Institute
www.xcopfly.com