wrote:
From: "Alun L. Palmer" on Mon, Jan 1 2007 10:32
pm
" wrote in
Alun L. Palmer wrote:
John Smith I wrote in
wrote:

I think you misunderstand me, Len. All I'm saying is that there are quite a
few radio professionals who are also radio hams, and you ought to at least
give it a try.

I don't "misunderstand" much, Alun.

Yes, you do, Len. You just don't understand what it is you don't
understand.

My good friend Allan Walston (W6MJN), friend and former
group manager Jim Hall (KD6JG), and military service
comrade Gene Rosenbaum (N2JTV) have all been professionals
involved in radio. All are against the elimination of the
morse code test in US amateur radio but I do not hold that
against them. They are good people.

Do you address them the way you address those here who disagree with
you?

"Give it a try?" I've already done that as a "third party"
on amateur radio bands.

Somebody else's radio, somebody else's license.

Good grief, Alun, I really have
communicated by radio many times in the past fifty
years...and over more of the EM spectrum than is allocated
to US radio amateurs.

But not with all the modes allowed to radio amateurs.

I know how it works. I've had to
"know" several different radio service protocols and have
no trouble adapting to any of them. Just what is it I am
supposed to "learn" in such "having fun?"

Then why are you so interested in the amateur radio regulations, Len?

That's an honest question. I don't lack for human
companionship, friends or much else.

That's nice.

Having once kept
many radio circuits operating 24/7, transmitting 'vital'
messages all day long,

Transmitting - not receiving. As part of a large team, too.

Did you control the content of the messages? Did you decide what
frequency, mode, or antenna to use?

I don't regard "collecting brief,
momentary contacts" as "fun."

Then don't do that. Amateur radio is about much more than contesting or
DXing.

If others like that, fine,
more power to them. Last I looked, 'operating' a radio
is not the end-all, be-all of amateur radio.

Actually, it is - because that's what the license is for. Anybody can
listen, anybody
can design/build/repair/align radio equipment without any license at
all. What requires
a license is transmitting from - operating - an amateur radio station.

I have been opposed to code testing for the last 35 years, but it's all
over bar the shouting.

Yep. In fact the shouting is over too - I don't think FCC would
entertain any
Petitions for Reconsideration.

As Yogi Berra was quoted as saying "It ain't over till
its over!"

The "fat lady" hasn't sung yet and the Federal Register
won't be issued until Wednesday. FCC 06-178 has been
announced but it is ONLY an announcement and not yet
law.

Two days of the Federal Register Volume 72 and no R&O in either. Maybe
today. I'm
keeping watch....

As for the age limit thing, we used to have a lower limit of 14 in the UK,
but it was dropped completely and never missed.

I'm NOT into that "age thing."

What does "NOT into that "age thing."" mean, Len?

Does it mean you admit you were wrong about it?

Or just that you don't want to hear about it any more, because it shows
you are
interested in far more than just eliminating Element 1?

Almost 8 years ago my
particular Reply to Comment on FCC 98-143 had a
"suggestion" to that effect on the last of 14 pages
of text accepted by the FCC.

All petitions, proposals, comments, reply comments and similar
communications to FCC are "suggestions" that FCC change the rules (or
not) to agree with what the "suggester" wants.

If anyone wants to see the public record, they only
need go to the FCC ECFS and bring up the 13 Jan 99
Comments.

No, the Reply Comments. You didn't file any Comments on 98-143, you
only filed a Reply Comment. I checked.

Here's a direct link:

http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/r...t=6006041 560

In that they will find out that my
suggestion was THEN prompted by a (referenced) ARRL
news page wherein two 6-year-olds were shown in a
picture as "the youngest hams."

Actually, they were *four* years old at the time of being licensed.

The article, with picture, is he

http://www.arrl.org/arrlletter/98/980320/

According to the FCC regulations then and now, any
licensed radio amateur can operate on permitted
bands BY THEMSELVES. There's NO law saying that
6-year-olds "must" have parental supervision when
doing so. They (the sixes) could legally send RF
anywhere in the world, all by themselves.

Why is that a problem, if the children in question can pass the license
exams?

Len assumes the parents and families of these children, all of whom are
licensed
radio amateurs, would not be responsible about their children's use of
radio unless
the LAW bans them from being licensed until a certain age.

Way back about 7 years ago, I stated that CHILDREN
(specifically pointing to the six-year-olds) don't
have the RESPONSIBILITY nor the requisite wisdom
to behave properly in a largely-adult endeavor.

It seems you still think that way.

FCC disagrees with you. And so do I. Is that wrong of us?

Your solution was to propose an age requirement of *14* years for *any*
class of amateur license. Not six years, not eight years, not some sort
of limited license or parental permission supervision thing, but a
complete ban on all licensing of people under 14 years of age
regardless of any other factors.

Do you still think an age requirement is a good idea, Len?

The key piece of missing information was how the lack of such an age
requirement has caused problems with the amateur radio service.

IOW, what Len proposed was a *new* and completely unnecessary
restriction on amateur radio licensing, based on nothing more than his
own idea that amateur radio is "an ADULT activity". He ignores the many
examples of responsible young people in amateur radio, and would ban
all under 14 from it.

That hit a terrible sore point with all the morsers
who had (or cared for) children since, having passed
a high-rate code test, they were now PhD-equivalent
pediatric "experts." :-(

Len's not a parent, nor a teacher, nor a child expert in any way. Nor
does he know the families in question. But he knows that the licensing
of anyone under 14 years old must be stopped, even after 96 years!

I've tried to let the matter drop but

MUST
try to bring that subject up again, and again, and
again.

Someone else claimed you weren't against children having fun. I
disproved that claim by bringing up some facts. Is that wrong?

I suspect that I set an arbitrary age lim
it
of 14 and

got his first license at age 14.
See the connection?

What connection?

I got my license at age 13, Len. No big deal - that wasn't anywhere
near a record even back then. I was on the air at that age,
unsupervised, sending radio signals all over the world. With a
transmitter I built myself, too!

All legal - no problems.

I let this age thing drop years ago and won't pursue
it any more than I did almost 8 years ago.

You still believe in it now, though, don't you? Your statements here
prove it.

I am
getting annoyed that

keeps bringing it up
with supposed "motivations" that are impure or
immoral or somehow "against him."

You're getting your attributions mixed up, Len. I don't say your
motivations
are "impure" or "immoral". In fact, I don't think anyone did.

I just say the whole age thing is a bad idea.

That's why he
gets the bird flipped at him...

For telling the truth and disagreeing with you.

btw, your age-requirement "suggestion" was made in a Reply Comment, not
a Comment. Reply Comments are not supposed to include new subjects -
they are only supposed to reply to the comments of others. Procedural
mistake, Len.

The only RL life case I know of involving ham radio was someone in an area
where I used to live who allegedly enticed local boys into his radio shack,
If you think about it, preventing them from having their own licences could
have made his station all the more interesting to them.

I'm not going to venture into this area. I have
NEVER done such a thing, have no desire to "entice
anyone" into my electronics workshop, office,
vehicle, or home for ANY immoral purposes.

Nobody's talking about *you* in that context, Len. If you think they
are, then you completely misunderstood what Alun (not me, not K8MN)
wrote.

I have
a lovely wife, my high school sweetheart in fact,
and we've been together for longer than that
supposed moral perfidy that

keeps
crowing about, the one done almost 8 years ago on
the last page of 14 Comments submitted on 98-143.

You mean the bad idea of an age requirement? That's just a bad idea.

Here's a fun fact: You didn't get an amateur radio license before age
14, either.

Got that Alun? Got that Miccolis? Got that Heil?

Got what? That you have a nice life?

How come you address Alun by his first name, but others by their last
names?

Good, now DROP that 8-year-old "subject" and quit
all trying to pin some kind of moral-ethical "rep" on
me.

Are you telling us to shut up? Sure sounds like it!

I'm starting to get a bit ****ed off here.

Why? Don't you like the give-and-take?

Alun, if you feel you've been "misunderstood," then
I would suggest you check your own syntax on what
you say in here. There be all sorts of trolls eager
to pop up from under their bridges, ready to talk
trash and nonsensical "charges" of perfidy here.
They will take the slightest thing out of context
and manufacture (indeed custom-make) something
entirely different than what was originally written.

You mean like when someone says I proposed a "no-test" amateur radio
service, but
cannot provide any evidence of it?

Len, is there a rule that says something cannot be discussed after a
certain amount of time?
What's the time limit - five years? Three years? One year? - beyond
which something is
too old to bring up again?

I'd really like to know.