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If Ham Radio Were Invented Today (reprise)
Alternative Universe Probable Truisms -
1. There would be NO ARRL to provide "guidance" and direction. That expired before St. Hiram expired. [in this alternative universe] Newington, CT, would have no museum. 2. There would be NO morse code test since no other radio service except Maritime Radio used morse code. There would be NO need to keep a "pool of trained morse radio operators" for any national need. 3. There would be NO tales of olde-tyme ham doings because there would be no old-timers left to tell the tales...only pretenders who longed for a simpler (mythical) life way back before they were born. 4. The Titanic would have sunk anyway and several movies made about that tragedy. "Independence Day" would have been made anyway as a comic science-fiction vehicle for Will Smith who would later wear black suits and shades. 5. Hallicrafters and National Radio and Heathkit would have gone belly-up anyway. Collins Radio would have continued on into the military and commercial radio market without making any overpriced fancy amateur radios. Yaesu, Kenwood, Icom would still have been successful in the commercial and government market. SGC might still exist but in the personal sailing market. Ten-Tec might not exist. 6. Radio broadcasting would have become successful and tele- vision broadcasting even more so. "Overseas radiotelephone" would still exist via the first HF SSB radios in the 1930s. The first VHF FM mobiles would still be tested by various police departments in the late 1930s. The military would still be the first HT user courtesy of Galvin (later Motorola)...and the back- pack radio ("walkie-talkie" again from Galvin)...and the radio relay (WW2) and VHF repeater (Korean War) uses...and single- channel HF SSB (USAF, post WW2)...and aircraft VHF AM (WW2). HF RTTY circuits would have been formed before WW2 and continued on in wide-bandwidth HF SSB, later to have much higher data rates from transferrence of modem and information theory techniques. Cross-country microwave radio relay would still exist for hundreds of telephone circuits and many TV circuits on a single link. Government and business would still have tens of thousands of HT and mobile radios courtesy of the military WW2 legacy and the invention of transistors and integrated circuits. Communications satellites would still exist as soon as rockets could put them up there (first published paper on that by an up-coming science fiction writer named Arthur C. Clarke, then a "boffin" in the RAF right after WW2). All sorts of watercraft would have VHF radios in harbors due to the success of small land VHF radios. Radio- sondes by the hundreds of thousands would be used up annually using simple one-tube (pencil triode in a sheet metal cavity) transmitters in low microwave frequencies. The cellular telephone (past legal age in our universe) would still exist by the millions, morphed into a single-hand package with built-in video capability. There would still be "headphone radio" receivers for personal use, sometimes merged with CD players. "Wireless" would take on a new meaning as hundreds of thousands of data transceivers linked computers without wires. "Shortwave" broadcasting would still be trying out digital sound and finding out that it works despite dire warnings of impossibility. The U.S. military would still be using digital VHF manpack radios with encryption for voice and data for a total of a quarter million sets. None of the preceding required any "ham radio pioneering." 7. Arthur Godfrey would still get his TV show cancelled. Barry Goldwater would still unsuccessfully run for U.S. President. [the fate of Julius LaRosa is unknown in this universe] 8. The Federal Communications Commission would still exist on approximately the same scale and still trying to privatize commercial operator testing to save money. Radio use by non-hams after 1934 grew sufficiently large to require the agency to continue. 9. "CB" would have been created anyway, a fore-runner of the license-free personal radio wave of the future. [it is 46 years old in our universe which already has FRS, R-C, cordless telephones and wireless gizmos of all kinds] 10. Tens of thousands of electronic/radio hobbyists would be bereft of Title, Status, Privilege of the Royal-equivalent. Amateur Radio License that allowed them to add a callsign behind their names to show how good and expert they were in "radio." That would make it a bitter scene with many more fights of the amateurs (minority) with professionals (majority). LHA / WMD |
Len Over 21 wrote:
Alternative Universe Probable Truisms - 1. There would be NO ARRL... 2. There would be NO morse code test... 3. There would be NO tales of olde-tyme ham doings ... 4. The Titanic would have sunk anyway ... 5. Hallicrafters and National Radio and Heathkit would have gone belly-up anyway... 6. Radio broadcasting would have become successful ... 7. Arthur Godfrey would still get his TV show cancelled... 8. The Federal Communications Commission would still exist on approximately the same scale... 9. "CB" would have been created anyway... 10. Tens of thousands of electronic/radio hobbyists would be bereft of Title 11. Leonard H. Anderson would still be on the outside looking in. Dave K8MN |
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In article , Dave Heil
writes after catching PMS from the gunnery nurse: Len Over 21 wrote: Alternative Universe Probable Truisms - 1. There would be NO ARRL... 2. There would be NO morse code test... 3. There would be NO tales of olde-tyme ham doings ... 4. The Titanic would have sunk anyway ... 5. Hallicrafters and National Radio and Heathkit would have gone belly-up anyway... 6. Radio broadcasting would have become successful ... 7. Arthur Godfrey would still get his TV show cancelled... 8. The Federal Communications Commission would still exist on approximately the same scale... 9. "CB" would have been created anyway... 10. Tens of thousands of electronic/radio hobbyists would be bereft of Title 11. Leonard H. Anderson would still be on the outside looking in. Only for AMATEUR radio. There's a MUCH LARGER commercial and military world of radio, Herr Robust. You've only seen a small part of it while in "the foreign service." Let's all hear it for those olde-tyme raddio hammes who've been in ham radio forever and want to make everyone jump through the same hoops they had to! Good luck on that one, now... LHA / WMD |
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(Len Over 21) wrote in message ...
In article , (Steve Robeson, K4CAP) writes: (Len Over 21) wrote in message ... Alternative Universe Probable Truisms Majority of silliness snipped. "Silly Yes...silly. It was a pathetic troll. No more. No problem for the rest of the radio world. They continued to evolve, grow, advance, and discover things...and make profits on all that... without any assistance from amateur radio. Amateur Radio long ago gave way as a boileroom for technology. It now serves as fertile ground for spwaning new interest in electronics for many. It also continues to provide a very necessary and versatile public service. These are facts acknowledged by everyone from Congress to industry leaders to public officials who have had to call on Amateurs to respond. That is doesn't fit your lying rants is inconsequential to anyone but you, Lennie. Professionals make money at their activities...that's why they are called "professionals". Great. You're on the same playing field as drug dealers and prostitutes. Tsk, tsk...more hypocrisy...you claim you never said anything bad about professionals yet there you go making nasty to pros again. Nope...to one, ALLEGED "pro". You keep trying to make it a plural, Lennie, insinuating that this is my position towards ALL "pros"... It's not...never was...JUST you...Don't you feel "special"...?!?! Sigh...think of the alternative. If I got an amateur radio license I might turn into a bullying barbarian. It wouldn't be nice to have TWO like you in the newsgroup, would it? Congratualtions, Lennie...You're ALREADY a bullying barbarian...Didn't need any federal license or 14 years of night school to get there, either. I didn't "rewrite history," Stebe. All the OTHER radio services I wrote about took place in OUR reality, independently, without any help from ARRL or amateur radio. Your OWN history, Lennie...Your OWN. Nice try to redirect, as failed as it was... Everyone knows about AM and FM broadcasting...(SNIPPED) Yes, Lennie...we don't need you to blast the NG with yet another cut-and-pasted smoke screen for you to hide behind. You still spend countelss hours trolling for arguments that you subsequently try to turn into a defensable "it's character assassination" rants. Still doesn't work. Tsk, tsk, tsk...calling others names like "pathological liar" is rather much like character assassination to most anyone else... It's not a "name", Your Putziness... It's a fact. Sucks to be you, Lennie. Wake up and join humanity before Mrs Putz has to plant you. There's no "Mrs Putz" living at this address. There is if there's a female person married to you residing there. I've been a part of humanity for a few decades now and likely to continue despite running across hate-filled, enraged gunnery nurses who try to bully others on line. Let's see...WHO is in this forum without any valid experience or vested interest in the topic, Lennie? Trying to insult my wife indirectly is not nice. It's your style but it still is not nice and doesn't work very well, does it? I am not insulting your wife...Just her lame husband and her obvious lack of taste in choosing one. Steve, K4YZ |
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In article , Leo
writes: This follows on the lines of the thread that Mike and I have commented on previously, so here goes: On 18 Jan 2004 20:34:05 GMT, (Len Over 21) wrote: Alternative Universe Probable Truisms - [continued] 8. The Federal Communications Commission would still exist on approximately the same scale and still trying to privatize commercial operator testing to save money. Radio use by non-hams after 1934 grew sufficiently large to require the agency to continue. I believe that they would, along with IC and all of the other national regulatory agencies. It's a vast spectrum, and most of their energies are directed towards management of the commercial sector. That's where the majority of users exist and that is how it should be (to me). 9. "CB" would have been created anyway, a fore-runner of the license-free personal radio wave of the future. [it is 46 years old in our universe which already has FRS, R-C, cordless telephones and wireless gizmos of all kinds] Probably - people love to communicate! Folks would have seen the cabbies, police and other commercial operators using 2-way radio equipment, many ex-military guys would have experienced using the technology first hand, and would have wanted the same type of system for themselves. (in the pre-cellular telephone days, anyway...). And, if there's a market, somebody would have developed it! Did you say "market?" :-) One in three Americans has a cell phone subscription; according to our Census Bureau. Yet, a decade earlier we all got along just fine with a relative handful of cell users. With the marketing blitz still on-going for cell phone handsets, various user plans, all sorts of attachments (including a little hands-free earphone-microphone with its own little two-way radio), I'd say the marketeers have pretty well established that side of telephony. One in three Americans means a quantity of about 100 million. At the end of 2004 some forecasters have predicted a worldwide cellular telephone useage of over 2 billion units! Think of it...2 billion little two-way radios...and not a single user is required to test for any license or know morse code. :-) And NONE of them "owe" any technology even remotely to "amateur radio pioneering or innovation." Many U.S. hams speak with contempt of the VHF and above region ("shack on the belt" is a typical comment of our remaining newsgroupie bus driver). Cell phones (in the U.S.) run at 900+ MHz. People DO love to communicate, obvious to anyone at an airport (among many venues)...even in supermarkets. Should be nothing wrong with that except for the few that insist, nay demand, terrible adherence to HOW the communication is done...along with "official granting" of license, a permission to communicate. :-) 10. Tens of thousands of electronic/radio hobbyists would be bereft of Title, Status, Privilege of the Royal-equivalent. Amateur Radio License that allowed them to add a callsign behind their names to show how good and expert they were in "radio." That would make it a bitter scene with many more fights of the amateurs (minority) with professionals (majority). Personally, I don't view my license as a measure of my expertise in the art of radio. As my examiner told me when he shook my hand after I passed the test - it's a license to learn. Nothing more. I think that is a mentally healthy outlook on a recreational activity. Obviously some Ham Lifestylers in here will disagree. Those love to endlessly self-enoble themselves as "members of a service," apparently thinking they are an asset to the nation. They are simply making an asset of themselves. I am greatly amused by the U.S.A. population's apparent NEED for royal titles of any kind, status, position, quasi-nobility, and all other alphabet soup kinds of name add-ons. Was only 228 years ago that the U.S.A. declared itself "free" of royalty. Yet, here we are now with some desperately clinging to a "higher royal class" of labeling. :-) For those cling-ons, the U.S. amateur radio "incentive plan" was a godsend establishing all those classes of license. To them the incentive was to "upgrade" so they could sneer with contempt at all the lower forms of ham life. Many still do, more's the pity. [some have a visceral need to attack the preceived inferior ones, a mental sickness which I doubt will cease in any form of human activity...:-( ] Nice discussing something with you, Leo. [others will disagree...:-) ] LHA / WMD |
In article , Leo
writes: This follows on the lines of the thread that Mike and I have commented on previously, so here goes: [continued from previous start - ] 6. Radio broadcasting would have become successful and tele- vision broadcasting even more so. "Overseas radiotelephone" would still exist via the first HF SSB radios in the 1930s. The first VHF FM mobiles would still be tested by various police Agreed - commercial and military radiocommunications would have grown anyway. Although some developments came from amateur radio, many more did not. A few years ago, I attended a Lucent course on their CDMA (spread spectrum, code division multiple access) cellular base station radio equipment. A Qualcomm engineer (CDMA is their patented technology) started off his presentation by asking us if we knew who invented the concept of CDMA. Bell Labs? MIT? The military? No. It was a German actress named Hedy Lamarr! She propsed it as a method of secret communications back in the 40s - obviously the technology (powerful computers) to implement it did not exist at the time. He went on to further amaze the group by informing us that she also devised the concept of frequency hopping (which I believe was used during the war - please correct me if I am wrong). Definitely a good thing that she got out of Germany prior to the war! Hedy was not an amateur, and had no interest in radio. That's been distorted from the original. IEEE Spectrum did a piece on Hedy's (Hedwig Markey is the name on the patent) and George Antheil's patent for a torpedo guidance device. Antheil was a friend of Hedy's and involved in automated pianos such as an updated player piano. Hedy had been married in Germany to a German industrialist who was a munitions maker; one of the products was a torpedo. Hedy wasn't a brainless actress and could grasp ideas. Antheil already had some inventions going in music and they traded some thoughts and concepts. Hedy had adopted the USA (or the other way around) and wanted to help the war effort any way she could (besides USO tours). The end result was an idea of a secure torpedo guidance system using programmable audio tones sent over a wire umbilical. It was doable with vacuum tube technology then. The patent was granted but never used by anyone! Eventually it expired. The USN and other nations using submarines and torpedos eventually developed wireline guidance of some torpedos but not with the system proposed by Markey and Antheil. For communications security, the USA already had AT&T to help in eventually developing a good voice scrambler so that the Germans lost their ability to eavesdrop on FDR's and Churchill's radiotelephone chats. That scrambler used shifting voice sub-bands and took up a small tow- behind trailer. Think of that as a parallel development in audio tone things. Hedy Lamarr inventing CDMA? I don't think so. The origin of that myth lies with some magazine or wire-service staffer who didn't know enough about electronic systems but probably saw a trade magazine article. Code Division Multiple Access is an eventual descendant of pulse-position modulation multiple voice channel radio relay equipment. The 8-voice-channel AN/TRC-6 that we signalmen in microwave radio relay school at Fort Monmouth used as a training system has much more in common to the eventual digitized voice comm systems than a torpedo guidance system. General Electric had already designed a 24-voice-channel microwave radio relay system for commercial use and that was purchased by the US Army. The later evolution of digital pulse trains in telephony circuits was a direct predecessor to CDMA. For that matter, the "rotor" encryption teleprinters of WW2 have more in common with CDMA. Those scrambled the teleprinter character code according to the rotor settings (actually multiple-pole rotary switches) to yield encryption without changing the basic nature of the 5-bit character code. The "Sigaba" of WW2 is an example, never compromised until the capture of the Pueblo years later. Spread- Spectrum techniques came out of work on developing encryption electronics along with Information Theory that had begun with things like "Shannon's Law" of 1948. Aligning a material object with an exceptionally beautiful woman of considerable intelligence is totally terrific PR. In truth, a stretch of the imagination that makes bungee cords break. Hedy and George came up with a TORPEDO GUIDANCE SYSTEM...that was never used as such. The original story has been told. Distortion came later. Good ideas come from everywhere. Absolutely. Even gorgeous actresses or handsome newsgroupies...:-) A question: what would not have been invented, or delayed, had the ARS not existed? Ham Radio Outlet, the chain, would never exist. :-) Newington, CT, would have a museum only of local artifacts. This and several other newsgroups would be about something entirely different...but just as concrete-headed in its patrons as the others. QSL card printers would have to go back to making picture postcards for sale at drug stores and supermarkets. TVI in urban neighborhoods would have a different flavor. Ed Hare might have to go out and work for a living... :-) The possibilities in any alternate universe are infinite. Everyone's ideas would be as "correct" as any other since there is nothing to base them on for "proof." :-) LHA / WMD |
In article , Leo
writes: Some good thoughts there, Leo. I'll add to my previous comments. This follows on the lines of the thread that Mike and I have commented on previously, so here goes: On 18 Jan 2004 20:34:05 GMT, (Len Over 21) wrote: Alternative Universe Probable Truisms - 1. There would be NO ARRL to provide "guidance" and direction. That expired before St. Hiram expired. [in this alternative universe] Newington, CT, would have no museum. True - no AR, no ARRL. Mr. Maxim would be remembered only as the inventor of the Maxim Silencer for explosive weapons, and for his work on automobile silencers (mufflers, I assume). However, following along with the subject of the thread - the startup of a "new" Amateur Radio Service" would concievably attract a lot of people to it - an organization starting up to represent them and their interests (and take their money) seems like a given. In the wider world of early radio organizations (see Thomas H. White's very notable web pages as well as print history), ARRL was a relative latecomer in amateur radio. The one thing they can claim is having survived the early competition in the USA. [I'll have to use the USA as a reference here, no slight intended against Canada, only against my meager knowledge of Canadian amateur activities of earlier times] ARRL, by their own history, began as a local New England radio club largely organized for relaying telegraphy messages quicker than was provided by commercial carriers. In reality that is a form of "hacking" hardly different than the CD music stealing that went on through the Internet in modern times. So, the 3-man club got more locals and "organized" in 1914. The Radio Club of America had already existed for 5 years and some of the RCA members were very involved in amateur radio activities. [first to use acronym 'RCA' but not aligned with RCA Corporation that once was] The local ARRL club was small in 1914 and many national clubs for amateur radio were much larger in membership. The "League" effectively used PR and promotional techniques to expand, slowly adding on news and technical publications. It had very little of what it eventually became. Intense self-promotion (League publications themselves are excellent vehicles to do such things) kept their name/organization in everyone's mind. It fostered an image in many minds to make up for the generally solitary activity of one amateur listening for hours to static in hopes of capturing a weak telegraphic signal. Technology of radio was still quite primitive. The first two attempts at trans-national (USA) message relay were disappointing failures. Nonetheless, the ARRL kept up the PR and eventually made it through the competition for "national amateur representation." Competition included the formidable base of Hugo Gernsback's little publishing empire and his own attempts at building an amateur radio organization. The key element in establishing the ARRL was Maxim's own funded lobbying in DC after WW1 to restore U.S. amateur radio. That worked, amazingly enough, and became the stuff of legend in much later League self-promotion...even 86 years later. Maxim became "president for life" of the ARRL and "served" until the 1930s. Sort of a private little empire which happens in all organizations eventually. That's not to decry Maxim's efforts but, in order to be fair, one cannot pin 'altruism' on Maxim's "service to the League." He was instrumental in starting it and no doubt was self-possessive about it. With radio technology still not climbing the steep walls of exponential leaps and bounds in electronics technology in 1920, ARRL publications were about the only trade news available to the everyman hobbyist at that time. There was very little of the information media bonanza we all enjoy today. Knowledge took time to spread. League publications helped that since they weren't involved in patent disputes (many, many in the 1920s, 1930s) or various groups' attempts to control radio or trade secret developments that industry was jealously guarding. ARRL pubs were an EXCELLENT vehicle, a medium for self-promotion and the League didn't hesitate one bit to keep on promoting itself. 2. There would be NO morse code test since no other radio service except Maritime Radio used morse code. There would be NO need to keep a "pool of trained morse radio operators" for any national need. True enough - if amateur radio were invented today, it's pretty unlikely that Morse Code would be a mandatory requirement or play any significant role - it's a dead technology in the commercial and military world today (just spies and some covert military ops remain professional users of morse signalling today). I believe that it would be a 'special interest' thing for people who wanted to play around with it. There are MANY and varied groups of hobbyists involved in electronics today and many of those existed before personal computers began. "High fidelity" music/sound was one though it has shrunk to a niche market now. Robotics in general seems to be the latest in interest, merging microcontrollers and machinery in lots of different forms. Keyboard synthesizers had been a big thing with the first of the lower-cost personal computers, but now simplified into commercially-available programmable music machines. A close look into the availability of parts and materials at various smaller merchandizers on websites will show that there is great interest in electronics-oriented experimentation and hobby work besides just radio communications. Merchants are a good barometer of where the hobby work goes on...it's a cruel market where only the larger interests survive (regardless of individual favorites)...merchants can't pay bills with altruism. :-) I wonder, though, if in the absence of Amateur Radio, something else might have evolved to meet the need of having extra trained people available? Perhaps an auxillary (and voluntary) communications corps, mobilized by the military or local government during times of need? They might even provide the equipment and training...wouldn't be free, though - Amateur Radio doesn't cost them much (if anything) to mobilize. I personally doubt it on scales larger than local, urban groups. Radio - on the larger scale of human activities - is an established medium of communications used by government and business on a large scale. It's not a mystery or magic that it once appeared to be in the 1920s or 1930s. Radio is far more widespread in society of the USA than all of amateur radio in North America. Use of a radio is ridiculously easy with existing radio equipment of the 1960s era, not just that of the 2000s. Government and business HTs on VHF-UHF are more numerous than amateur HTs in the USA and have been so for more than 30 years. What is needed, if anything, is the coordination of groups involved in "needy operations," the control-and-response protocols, organizational structures to get the various tasks done. That doesn't need specialized "radio training," just group organization. Police and fire people use radios every day without any special classes in radio innards, often with just a few minutes of personalized instruction. 3. There would be NO tales of olde-tyme ham doings because there would be no old-timers left to tell the tales...only pretenders who longed for a simpler (mythical) life way back before they were born. Well, there would still be old timers telling tales - just not ham radio ones ;) Of course! That's a given. :-) Especially those bitter about not having the opportunity to do big- leagues communications on HF a half century ago. bseg, lol 4. The Titanic would have sunk anyway and several movies made about that tragedy. Unfortunately, yes. And many other unfortunate events may well have become much disasters or have increased in magnitude, as there would have been far less people monitoring the bands and detecting / relaying emergency traffic if the ARS had not existed. Would there be? That MIGHT be true in 1912, 92 years ago and 2 years before the ARRL existed. The international martime distress frequency of 500 KHz had not yet been implemented in 1912. The distance to land was not that great and the radios of that time were not sensitive in receiving although some of the spark transmitters where "high power." Had that happened in the much larger Pacific, farther from land, or in the southern Atlantic or Indian Ocean, it might have been a whole different story. Pro-coders are quick on the trigger to trot out OLD tales of "need to relay traffic" when there is NO need to relay any traffic today or even four decades ago. GMDSS was implemented by the Maritime Community to replace the old 500 KHz Autoalarms. That there haven't been that many maritime disasters since is a tribute to modern day shipbuilding and education/experience of ship masters. The highly-touted 500 KHz frequency didn't save the Andrea Doria from sinking back in 1956...or prevent the collosion with the Stockholm. The international civil aviation community has had 121.5 MHz as an emergency frequency since 1955, several SSB voice frequencies on HF since then for over-ocean flights. Here in Los Angeles we just had the 10th anniversary of the Northridge Earthquake. Widespread destruction and 60 deaths as a result. The entire primary electrical power distribution was cut off for hours. The area IS organized, trained, drilled for this sort of thing and it functioned very well using the infrastructure of government-utilities-business communications, both wireline and radio. Amateur radio did not aid in that until about two days later. Utility crews had their hands full trying to restore power (successful), repair damaged lines and streets, clearing away some toppled buildings. Fire departments rolled as needed, their stations and vehicle communications functioning fine. Hospitals and care centers all had emergency electrical power, more needed than "health and welfare message traffic." We survived. "Independence Day" would have been made anyway as a comic science-fiction vehicle for Will Smith who would later wear black suits and shades. Uh-huh...even the ARS was unable to save the world from this. From Hollywood? :-) Try the movie "Frequency." 5. Hallicrafters and National Radio and Heathkit would have gone belly-up anyway. Collins Radio would have continued on into the military and commercial radio market without making any overpriced fancy amateur radios. Yaesu, Kenwood, Icom would still have been successful in the commercial and government market. SGC might still exist but in the personal sailing market. Ten-Tec might not exist. Without the ARS, one indeed wonders how long companies like Hallicrafters and National would have survived - after WWII, amateur radio was a large part of their market. Not as much as you would believe. Bill Halligan's Chicago company was busy with both prime and subcontracts for radio equipment, including the famous BC-610 used in the SCR-299 mobile HF station. Hallicrafters was busy with making HF radios for the commercial and government market, not seen in popular ham magazine ads. National Radio made a name for itself with the HRO receivers sold also to commercial and government buyers, again not that much advertisement in magazines. Very unlikely makers of things got into the radio manufacture arena during WW2, such as Lewyt Vacuum Cleaner Company who made some of the BC-339 1 KW HF transmitters I QSYed a half century ago! [name was on the ID tag riveted to the frame...:-) ] Paul Galvin's Motorola-to-be (also in Chicago) was cranking out the BC-1000 walkie-talkies (backpack VHF transceiver) of WW2 after stealing Dan Noble from Link, Link doing pioneering in mobile FM radio for police departments...which led to widespread use of mobile, channelized FM transceiver for land vehicles. Galvin was also organizer/central-point for the number 2 priority of all U.S. WW2 manufacturing (second only to the Manhattan Project) of quartz crystal units. Better than a half million crystal units a month made by over 30 U.S. companies for the last three years of WW2...all for the military communications needs of the USA and Great Britain. Could they have hung on by just selling radio equipment to SWLs listening to foreign commercial broadcasts? No. No need. After WW2, there was a big (but not widely advertised) push in other areas. Motorola went after the police and government mobile FM radios along with other makers. Collins Radio, already big enough in military-commercial radio, got a boost from SAC contracts for single-channel SSB and various military land radios. RCA also got into the single-channel SSB race, designed some, eventually dropped out of much of the military market. Civil aviation got going on VHF AM comm-nav and UHF radionav radios for aircraft after 1955 and the ICAO decisions-allocations. Military TACAN had morphed into DME for civil aviation, civil folks having develped VOR for bearing to ground stations. National Radio Company continued for years to build radio systems for the USN, past 1970. Collins continues to be a standard for excellence in aircraft systems. Many of the makers of today's radios for commercial-government use aren't advertised in "popular" magazines because that's not a target market area. ITT in Fort Wayne, Indiana, designed (and redesigned) the SINCGARS basic small-unit land forces radio...between them and the former Land Division of General Dynamics in Florida, a quarter million sets were produced beginning in 1989. That's more than about a hundred thousand AN/PRC-25s and -77s made since the early 60s (VHF, channelized, voice only, used in Vietnam and elsewhere). One of the Hughes Aircraft divisions designed and made a bunch of the standard HF R/Ts for land forces (AN/PRC-104 for manpack version, 20 W PEP, automatic antenna tuner) beginning in 1984. There's a whole heaping glob of various military electronics produced by many since the end of WW2, too many to recount here. Very little of that is evidenced by ads in ham magazines. Hams don't buy the stuff new and surplus radios don't generate money for the original manufacturers. It WILL be familiar to those of us who have worked in the electronics industry. Nearly all the "radio" makers of 1945 tried their hand at TV sets for civilians. Hallicrafters did (with a push-button channel selector!), so did National Radio (I bought a 7-incher in 1949). Most dropped out in the intense competition. Eventually all the U.S. makers of TV sets went belly-up although the Indianapolis division of Thompson- CSF (the old RCA Corporation plant there) still makes some color TVs on-shore. General Radio, who long ago quit making radios in favor of precision instruments, eventually dropped out. I don't know why Hallicrafters quit or what happened to National Radio other than concentrating solely on government stuff. Collins Radio is alive and well but long out of amateur markets. Icom, Yaesu, and Kenwood probably make more commercial- government radios than amateur equipment. Those are the triad from the Far East that beat the commercial pants off North American communications radio producers...except for some specialty divisions of General Electric and Motorola (two as an example in mobile radio market). Some of their commercial, non-amateur market radios are being sold through chains like HRO, but otherwise few amateurs get input from ham publications on that side of their business. All three do good in design and manufacture, are innovative and dare to hit the market with new things. Some companies may never have started up in the first place, as their beginnings were entirely in amateur radio. Before or after WW2? Bill Halligan was a ham, also Art Collins, just two early examples. Collins Radio survived and prospered, Halli- crafters didn't. The reasons aren't simplistic. Business, to survive and grow, needs a lot of things and niche markets aren't successful for the ambitious growth plans of some. Diversification may be necessary as was the growth of General Electric Company and its many divisions...RCA Corp was spun out of some of those and eventually GE bought RCA back (irony!). :-) Whether or not specialty or niche-market companies survive depends on the founders and what they want to do. They may develop a fantastic reputation through clever PR and create an intense, loyal following, but the eventual color of bookkeeping ink can catch up to them. Adulation of customers doesn't pay bills...customers have to keep buying, write checks, not write peans of praise. Business is TOUGH. [ to be continued... ] LHA / WMD |
On 20 Jan 2004 23:24:20 GMT, (Len Over 21) wrote:
In article , Leo writes: This follows on the lines of the thread that Mike and I have commented on previously, so here goes: On 18 Jan 2004 20:34:05 GMT, (Len Over 21) wrote: Alternative Universe Probable Truisms - [continued] 8. The Federal Communications Commission would still exist on approximately the same scale and still trying to privatize commercial operator testing to save money. Radio use by non-hams after 1934 grew sufficiently large to require the agency to continue. I believe that they would, along with IC and all of the other national regulatory agencies. It's a vast spectrum, and most of their energies are directed towards management of the commercial sector. That's where the majority of users exist and that is how it should be (to me). 9. "CB" would have been created anyway, a fore-runner of the license-free personal radio wave of the future. [it is 46 years old in our universe which already has FRS, R-C, cordless telephones and wireless gizmos of all kinds] Probably - people love to communicate! Folks would have seen the cabbies, police and other commercial operators using 2-way radio equipment, many ex-military guys would have experienced using the technology first hand, and would have wanted the same type of system for themselves. (in the pre-cellular telephone days, anyway...). And, if there's a market, somebody would have developed it! Did you say "market?" :-) One in three Americans has a cell phone subscription; according to our Census Bureau. Yet, a decade earlier we all got along just fine with a relative handful of cell users. With the marketing blitz still on-going for cell phone handsets, various user plans, all sorts of attachments (including a little hands-free earphone-microphone with its own little two-way radio), I'd say the marketeers have pretty well established that side of telephony. One in three Americans means a quantity of about 100 million. At the end of 2004 some forecasters have predicted a worldwide cellular telephone useage of over 2 billion units! Think of it...2 billion little two-way radios...and not a single user is required to test for any license or know morse code. :-) And NONE of them "owe" any technology even remotely to "amateur radio pioneering or innovation." Many U.S. hams speak with contempt of the VHF and above region ("shack on the belt" is a typical comment of our remaining newsgroupie bus driver). Cell phones (in the U.S.) run at 900+ MHz. People DO love to communicate, obvious to anyone at an airport (among many venues)...even in supermarkets. Should be nothing wrong with that except for the few that insist, nay demand, terrible adherence to HOW the communication is done...along with "official granting" of license, a permission to communicate. :-) 10. Tens of thousands of electronic/radio hobbyists would be bereft of Title, Status, Privilege of the Royal-equivalent. Amateur Radio License that allowed them to add a callsign behind their names to show how good and expert they were in "radio." That would make it a bitter scene with many more fights of the amateurs (minority) with professionals (majority). Personally, I don't view my license as a measure of my expertise in the art of radio. As my examiner told me when he shook my hand after I passed the test - it's a license to learn. Nothing more. I think that is a mentally healthy outlook on a recreational activity. Obviously some Ham Lifestylers in here will disagree. Those love to endlessly self-enoble themselves as "members of a service," apparently thinking they are an asset to the nation. They are simply making an asset of themselves. I am greatly amused by the U.S.A. population's apparent NEED for royal titles of any kind, status, position, quasi-nobility, and all other alphabet soup kinds of name add-ons. Was only 228 years ago that the U.S.A. declared itself "free" of royalty. Yet, here we are now with some desperately clinging to a "higher royal class" of labeling. :-) For those cling-ons, the U.S. amateur radio "incentive plan" was a godsend establishing all those classes of license. To them the incentive was to "upgrade" so they could sneer with contempt at all the lower forms of ham life. Many still do, more's the pity. [some have a visceral need to attack the preceived inferior ones, a mental sickness which I doubt will cease in any form of human activity...:-( ] Nice discussing something with you, Leo. [others will disagree...:-) ] Len, I must admit that I fully agree. It took me over a half hour to read through and absorb all of the information that you presented in your three replies on this subject. That's an excellent depth of knowledge you have there... I learned a great deal, stand corrected on a couple of points, and am following up on the Web on some of your referencess for more information - fascinating stuff! Much appreciated! LHA / WMD 73, Leo |
On 20 Jan 2004 23:24:27 GMT, (Len Over 21) wrote:
In article , Leo writes: Some good thoughts there, Leo. I'll add to my previous comments. This follows on the lines of the thread that Mike and I have commented on previously, so here goes: On 18 Jan 2004 20:34:05 GMT, (Len Over 21) wrote: Alternative Universe Probable Truisms - 1. There would be NO ARRL to provide "guidance" and direction. That expired before St. Hiram expired. [in this alternative universe] Newington, CT, would have no museum. True - no AR, no ARRL. Mr. Maxim would be remembered only as the inventor of the Maxim Silencer for explosive weapons, and for his work on automobile silencers (mufflers, I assume). However, following along with the subject of the thread - the startup of a "new" Amateur Radio Service" would concievably attract a lot of people to it - an organization starting up to represent them and their interests (and take their money) seems like a given. In the wider world of early radio organizations (see Thomas H. White's very notable web pages as well as print history), ARRL was a relative latecomer in amateur radio. The one thing they can claim is having survived the early competition in the USA. [I'll have to use the USA as a reference here, no slight intended against Canada, only against my meager knowledge of Canadian amateur activities of earlier times] None taken - I haven't found much historical information on amateur radio up here, so my own knowledge in this area is in the meager department as well.... ARRL, by their own history, began as a local New England radio club largely organized for relaying telegraphy messages quicker than was provided by commercial carriers. In reality that is a form of "hacking" hardly different than the CD music stealing that went on through the Internet in modern times. So, the 3-man club got more locals and "organized" in 1914. The Radio Club of America had already existed for 5 years and some of the RCA members were very involved in amateur radio activities. [first to use acronym 'RCA' but not aligned with RCA Corporation that once was] The local ARRL club was small in 1914 and many national clubs for amateur radio were much larger in membership. The "League" effectively used PR and promotional techniques to expand, slowly adding on news and technical publications. It had very little of what it eventually became. Intense self-promotion (League publications themselves are excellent vehicles to do such things) kept their name/organization in everyone's mind. It fostered an image in many minds to make up for the generally solitary activity of one amateur listening for hours to static in hopes of capturing a weak telegraphic signal. Technology of radio was still quite primitive. The first two attempts at trans-national (USA) message relay were disappointing failures. Nonetheless, the ARRL kept up the PR and eventually made it through the competition for "national amateur representation." Competition included the formidable base of Hugo Gernsback's little publishing empire and his own attempts at building an amateur radio organization. The key element in establishing the ARRL was Maxim's own funded lobbying in DC after WW1 to restore U.S. amateur radio. That worked, amazingly enough, and became the stuff of legend in much later League self-promotion...even 86 years later. Maxim became "president for life" of the ARRL and "served" until the 1930s. Sort of a private little empire which happens in all organizations eventually. That's not to decry Maxim's efforts but, in order to be fair, one cannot pin 'altruism' on Maxim's "service to the League." He was instrumental in starting it and no doubt was self-possessive about it. With radio technology still not climbing the steep walls of exponential leaps and bounds in electronics technology in 1920, ARRL publications were about the only trade news available to the everyman hobbyist at that time. There was very little of the information media bonanza we all enjoy today. Knowledge took time to spread. League publications helped that since they weren't involved in patent disputes (many, many in the 1920s, 1930s) or various groups' attempts to control radio or trade secret developments that industry was jealously guarding. ARRL pubs were an EXCELLENT vehicle, a medium for self-promotion and the League didn't hesitate one bit to keep on promoting itself. 2. There would be NO morse code test since no other radio service except Maritime Radio used morse code. There would be NO need to keep a "pool of trained morse radio operators" for any national need. True enough - if amateur radio were invented today, it's pretty unlikely that Morse Code would be a mandatory requirement or play any significant role - it's a dead technology in the commercial and military world today (just spies and some covert military ops remain professional users of morse signalling today). I believe that it would be a 'special interest' thing for people who wanted to play around with it. There are MANY and varied groups of hobbyists involved in electronics today and many of those existed before personal computers began. "High fidelity" music/sound was one though it has shrunk to a niche market now. Robotics in general seems to be the latest in interest, merging microcontrollers and machinery in lots of different forms. Keyboard synthesizers had been a big thing with the first of the lower-cost personal computers, but now simplified into commercially-available programmable music machines. A close look into the availability of parts and materials at various smaller merchandizers on websites will show that there is great interest in electronics-oriented experimentation and hobby work besides just radio communications. Merchants are a good barometer of where the hobby work goes on...it's a cruel market where only the larger interests survive (regardless of individual favorites)...merchants can't pay bills with altruism. :-) I wonder, though, if in the absence of Amateur Radio, something else might have evolved to meet the need of having extra trained people available? Perhaps an auxillary (and voluntary) communications corps, mobilized by the military or local government during times of need? They might even provide the equipment and training...wouldn't be free, though - Amateur Radio doesn't cost them much (if anything) to mobilize. I personally doubt it on scales larger than local, urban groups. Radio - on the larger scale of human activities - is an established medium of communications used by government and business on a large scale. It's not a mystery or magic that it once appeared to be in the 1920s or 1930s. Radio is far more widespread in society of the USA than all of amateur radio in North America. Use of a radio is ridiculously easy with existing radio equipment of the 1960s era, not just that of the 2000s. Government and business HTs on VHF-UHF are more numerous than amateur HTs in the USA and have been so for more than 30 years. What is needed, if anything, is the coordination of groups involved in "needy operations," the control-and-response protocols, organizational structures to get the various tasks done. That doesn't need specialized "radio training," just group organization. Police and fire people use radios every day without any special classes in radio innards, often with just a few minutes of personalized instruction. 3. There would be NO tales of olde-tyme ham doings because there would be no old-timers left to tell the tales...only pretenders who longed for a simpler (mythical) life way back before they were born. Well, there would still be old timers telling tales - just not ham radio ones ;) Of course! That's a given. :-) Especially those bitter about not having the opportunity to do big- leagues communications on HF a half century ago. bseg, lol ....caught that ;) 4. The Titanic would have sunk anyway and several movies made about that tragedy. Unfortunately, yes. And many other unfortunate events may well have become much disasters or have increased in magnitude, as there would have been far less people monitoring the bands and detecting / relaying emergency traffic if the ARS had not existed. Would there be? That MIGHT be true in 1912, 92 years ago and 2 years before the ARRL existed. The international martime distress frequency of 500 KHz had not yet been implemented in 1912. The distance to land was not that great and the radios of that time were not sensitive in receiving although some of the spark transmitters where "high power." Had that happened in the much larger Pacific, farther from land, or in the southern Atlantic or Indian Ocean, it might have been a whole different story. Pro-coders are quick on the trigger to trot out OLD tales of "need to relay traffic" when there is NO need to relay any traffic today or even four decades ago. GMDSS was implemented by the Maritime Community to replace the old 500 KHz Autoalarms. That there haven't been that many maritime disasters since is a tribute to modern day shipbuilding and education/experience of ship masters. The highly-touted 500 KHz frequency didn't save the Andrea Doria from sinking back in 1956...or prevent the collosion with the Stockholm. The international civil aviation community has had 121.5 MHz as an emergency frequency since 1955, several SSB voice frequencies on HF since then for over-ocean flights. Here in Los Angeles we just had the 10th anniversary of the Northridge Earthquake. Widespread destruction and 60 deaths as a result. The entire primary electrical power distribution was cut off for hours. The area IS organized, trained, drilled for this sort of thing and it functioned very well using the infrastructure of government-utilities-business communications, both wireline and radio. Amateur radio did not aid in that until about two days later. Utility crews had their hands full trying to restore power (successful), repair damaged lines and streets, clearing away some toppled buildings. Fire departments rolled as needed, their stations and vehicle communications functioning fine. Hospitals and care centers all had emergency electrical power, more needed than "health and welfare message traffic." We survived. "Independence Day" would have been made anyway as a comic science-fiction vehicle for Will Smith who would later wear black suits and shades. Uh-huh...even the ARS was unable to save the world from this. From Hollywood? :-) Try the movie "Frequency." 5. Hallicrafters and National Radio and Heathkit would have gone belly-up anyway. Collins Radio would have continued on into the military and commercial radio market without making any overpriced fancy amateur radios. Yaesu, Kenwood, Icom would still have been successful in the commercial and government market. SGC might still exist but in the personal sailing market. Ten-Tec might not exist. Without the ARS, one indeed wonders how long companies like Hallicrafters and National would have survived - after WWII, amateur radio was a large part of their market. Not as much as you would believe. Bill Halligan's Chicago company was busy with both prime and subcontracts for radio equipment, including the famous BC-610 used in the SCR-299 mobile HF station. Hallicrafters was busy with making HF radios for the commercial and government market, not seen in popular ham magazine ads. National Radio made a name for itself with the HRO receivers sold also to commercial and government buyers, again not that much advertisement in magazines. Very unlikely makers of things got into the radio manufacture arena during WW2, such as Lewyt Vacuum Cleaner Company who made some of the BC-339 1 KW HF transmitters I QSYed a half century ago! [name was on the ID tag riveted to the frame...:-) ] I have always been amazed at the versatility of some of the companies engaged in WWII production - it would be no small feat for a company manufacturing vacuum cleaners to retool their lines and train / hire staff to build a 1 KW radio transmitter to mil spec. ....or the Rock-Ola Jukebox Company cranking out M1 Carbines. Incredible! Paul Galvin's Motorola-to-be (also in Chicago) was cranking out the BC-1000 walkie-talkies (backpack VHF transceiver) of WW2 after stealing Dan Noble from Link, Link doing pioneering in mobile FM radio for police departments...which led to widespread use of mobile, channelized FM transceiver for land vehicles. Galvin was also organizer/central-point for the number 2 priority of all U.S. WW2 manufacturing (second only to the Manhattan Project) of quartz crystal units. Better than a half million crystal units a month made by over 30 U.S. companies for the last three years of WW2...all for the military communications needs of the USA and Great Britain. Could they have hung on by just selling radio equipment to SWLs listening to foreign commercial broadcasts? No. No need. After WW2, there was a big (but not widely advertised) push in other areas. Motorola went after the police and government mobile FM radios along with other makers. Collins Radio, already big enough in military-commercial radio, got a boost from SAC contracts for single-channel SSB and various military land radios. RCA also got into the single-channel SSB race, designed some, eventually dropped out of much of the military market. Civil aviation got going on VHF AM comm-nav and UHF radionav radios for aircraft after 1955 and the ICAO decisions-allocations. Military TACAN had morphed into DME for civil aviation, civil folks having develped VOR for bearing to ground stations. National Radio Company continued for years to build radio systems for the USN, past 1970. Collins continues to be a standard for excellence in aircraft systems. Many of the makers of today's radios for commercial-government use aren't advertised in "popular" magazines because that's not a target market area. ITT in Fort Wayne, Indiana, designed (and redesigned) the SINCGARS basic small-unit land forces radio...between them and the former Land Division of General Dynamics in Florida, a quarter million sets were produced beginning in 1989. That's more than about a hundred thousand AN/PRC-25s and -77s made since the early 60s (VHF, channelized, voice only, used in Vietnam and elsewhere). One of the Hughes Aircraft divisions designed and made a bunch of the standard HF R/Ts for land forces (AN/PRC-104 for manpack version, 20 W PEP, automatic antenna tuner) beginning in 1984. There's a whole heaping glob of various military electronics produced by many since the end of WW2, too many to recount here. Very little of that is evidenced by ads in ham magazines. Hams don't buy the stuff new and surplus radios don't generate money for the original manufacturers. It WILL be familiar to those of us who have worked in the electronics industry. Nearly all the "radio" makers of 1945 tried their hand at TV sets for civilians. Hallicrafters did (with a push-button channel selector!), so did National Radio (I bought a 7-incher in 1949). Most dropped out in the intense competition. Eventually all the U.S. makers of TV sets went belly-up although the Indianapolis division of Thompson- CSF (the old RCA Corporation plant there) still makes some color TVs on-shore. General Radio, who long ago quit making radios in favor of precision instruments, eventually dropped out. I don't know why Hallicrafters quit or what happened to National Radio other than concentrating solely on government stuff. Collins Radio is alive and well but long out of amateur markets. Icom, Yaesu, and Kenwood probably make more commercial- government radios than amateur equipment. Those are the triad from the Far East that beat the commercial pants off North American communications radio producers...except for some specialty divisions of General Electric and Motorola (two as an example in mobile radio market). Some of their commercial, non-amateur market radios are being sold through chains like HRO, but otherwise few amateurs get input from ham publications on that side of their business. All three do good in design and manufacture, are innovative and dare to hit the market with new things. Some companies may never have started up in the first place, as their beginnings were entirely in amateur radio. Before or after WW2? Bill Halligan was a ham, also Art Collins, just two early examples. Collins Radio survived and prospered, Halli- crafters didn't. The reasons aren't simplistic. Business, to survive and grow, needs a lot of things and niche markets aren't successful for the ambitious growth plans of some. Diversification may be necessary as was the growth of General Electric Company and its many divisions...RCA Corp was spun out of some of those and eventually GE bought RCA back (irony!). :-) Whether or not specialty or niche-market companies survive depends on the founders and what they want to do. They may develop a fantastic reputation through clever PR and create an intense, loyal following, but the eventual color of bookkeeping ink can catch up to them. Adulation of customers doesn't pay bills...customers have to keep buying, write checks, not write peans of praise. Business is TOUGH. [ to be continued... ] LHA / WMD |
In article , Leo
writes: Subject: If Ham Radio Were Invented Today (reprise) From: Leo Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 01:40:38 GMT On 20 Jan 2004 23:24:27 GMT, (Len Over 21) wrote: In article , Leo writes: Some good thoughts there, Leo. I'll add to my previous comments. This follows on the lines of the thread that Mike and I have commented on previously, so here goes: On 18 Jan 2004 20:34:05 GMT, (Len Over 21) wrote: Alternative Universe Probable Truisms - 1. There would be NO ARRL to provide "guidance" and direction. That expired before St. Hiram expired. [in this alternative universe] Newington, CT, would have no museum. True - no AR, no ARRL. Mr. Maxim would be remembered only as the inventor of the Maxim Silencer for explosive weapons, and for his work on automobile silencers (mufflers, I assume). However, following along with the subject of the thread - the startup of a "new" Amateur Radio Service" would concievably attract a lot of people to it - an organization starting up to represent them and their interests (and take their money) seems like a given. In the wider world of early radio organizations (see Thomas H. White's very notable web pages as well as print history), ARRL was a relative latecomer in amateur radio. The one thing they can claim is having survived the early competition in the USA. [I'll have to use the USA as a reference here, no slight intended against Canada, only against my meager knowledge of Canadian amateur activities of earlier times] None taken - I haven't found much historical information on amateur radio up here, so my own knowledge in this area is in the meager department as well.... ARRL, by their own history, began as a local New England radio club largely organized for relaying telegraphy messages quicker than was provided by commercial carriers. In reality that is a form of "hacking" hardly different than the CD music stealing that went on through the Internet in modern times. So, the 3-man club got more locals and "organized" in 1914. The Radio Club of America had already existed for 5 years and some of the RCA members were very involved in amateur radio activities. [first to use acronym 'RCA' but not aligned with RCA Corporation that once was] The local ARRL club was small in 1914 and many national clubs for amateur radio were much larger in membership. The "League" effectively used PR and promotional techniques to expand, slowly adding on news and technical publications. It had very little of what it eventually became. Intense self-promotion (League publications themselves are excellent vehicles to do such things) kept their name/organization in everyone's mind. It fostered an image in many minds to make up for the generally solitary activity of one amateur listening for hours to static in hopes of capturing a weak telegraphic signal. Technology of radio was still quite primitive. The first two attempts at trans-national (USA) message relay were disappointing failures. Nonetheless, the ARRL kept up the PR and eventually made it through the competition for "national amateur representation." Competition included the formidable base of Hugo Gernsback's little publishing empire and his own attempts at building an amateur radio organization. The key element in establishing the ARRL was Maxim's own funded lobbying in DC after WW1 to restore U.S. amateur radio. That worked, amazingly enough, and became the stuff of legend in much later League self-promotion...even 86 years later. Maxim became "president for life" of the ARRL and "served" until the 1930s. Sort of a private little empire which happens in all organizations eventually. That's not to decry Maxim's efforts but, in order to be fair, one cannot pin 'altruism' on Maxim's "service to the League." He was instrumental in starting it and no doubt was self-possessive about it. With radio technology still not climbing the steep walls of exponential leaps and bounds in electronics technology in 1920, ARRL publications were about the only trade news available to the everyman hobbyist at that time. There was very little of the information media bonanza we all enjoy today. Knowledge took time to spread. League publications helped that since they weren't involved in patent disputes (many, many in the 1920s, 1930s) or various groups' attempts to control radio or trade secret developments that industry was jealously guarding. ARRL pubs were an EXCELLENT vehicle, a medium for self-promotion and the League didn't hesitate one bit to keep on promoting itself. 2. There would be NO morse code test since no other radio service except Maritime Radio used morse code. There would be NO need to keep a "pool of trained morse radio operators" for any national need. True enough - if amateur radio were invented today, it's pretty unlikely that Morse Code would be a mandatory requirement or play any significant role - it's a dead technology in the commercial and military world today (just spies and some covert military ops remain professional users of morse signalling today). I believe that it would be a 'special interest' thing for people who wanted to play around with it. There are MANY and varied groups of hobbyists involved in electronics today and many of those existed before personal computers began. "High fidelity" music/sound was one though it has shrunk to a niche market now. Robotics in general seems to be the latest in interest, merging microcontrollers and machinery in lots of different forms. Keyboard synthesizers had been a big thing with the first of the lower-cost personal computers, but now simplified into commercially-available programmable music machines. A close look into the availability of parts and materials at various smaller merchandizers on websites will show that there is great interest in electronics-oriented experimentation and hobby work besides just radio communications. Merchants are a good barometer of where the hobby work goes on...it's a cruel market where only the larger interests survive (regardless of individual favorites)...merchants can't pay bills with altruism. :-) I wonder, though, if in the absence of Amateur Radio, something else might have evolved to meet the need of having extra trained people available? Perhaps an auxillary (and voluntary) communications corps, mobilized by the military or local government during times of need? They might even provide the equipment and training...wouldn't be free, though - Amateur Radio doesn't cost them much (if anything) to mobilize. I personally doubt it on scales larger than local, urban groups. Radio - on the larger scale of human activities - is an established medium of communications used by government and business on a large scale. It's not a mystery or magic that it once appeared to be in the 1920s or 1930s. Radio is far more widespread in society of the USA than all of amateur radio in North America. Use of a radio is ridiculously easy with existing radio equipment of the 1960s era, not just that of the 2000s. Government and business HTs on VHF-UHF are more numerous than amateur HTs in the USA and have been so for more than 30 years. What is needed, if anything, is the coordination of groups involved in "needy operations," the control-and-response protocols, organizational structures to get the various tasks done. That doesn't need specialized "radio training," just group organization. Police and fire people use radios every day without any special classes in radio innards, often with just a few minutes of personalized instruction. 3. There would be NO tales of olde-tyme ham doings because there would be no old-timers left to tell the tales...only pretenders who longed for a simpler (mythical) life way back before they were born. Well, there would still be old timers telling tales - just not ham radio ones ;) Of course! That's a given. :-) Especially those bitter about not having the opportunity to do big- leagues communications on HF a half century ago. bseg, lol ...caught that ;) 4. The Titanic would have sunk anyway and several movies made about that tragedy. Unfortunately, yes. And many other unfortunate events may well have become much disasters or have increased in magnitude, as there would have been far less people monitoring the bands and detecting / relaying emergency traffic if the ARS had not existed. Would there be? That MIGHT be true in 1912, 92 years ago and 2 years before the ARRL existed. The international martime distress frequency of 500 KHz had not yet been implemented in 1912. The distance to land was not that great and the radios of that time were not sensitive in receiving although some of the spark transmitters where "high power." Had that happened in the much larger Pacific, farther from land, or in the southern Atlantic or Indian Ocean, it might have been a whole different story. Pro-coders are quick on the trigger to trot out OLD tales of "need to relay traffic" when there is NO need to relay any traffic today or even four decades ago. GMDSS was implemented by the Maritime Community to replace the old 500 KHz Autoalarms. That there haven't been that many maritime disasters since is a tribute to modern day shipbuilding and education/experience of ship masters. The highly-touted 500 KHz frequency didn't save the Andrea Doria from sinking back in 1956...or prevent the collosion with the Stockholm. The international civil aviation community has had 121.5 MHz as an emergency frequency since 1955, several SSB voice frequencies on HF since then for over-ocean flights. Here in Los Angeles we just had the 10th anniversary of the Northridge Earthquake. Widespread destruction and 60 deaths as a result. The entire primary electrical power distribution was cut off for hours. The area IS organized, trained, drilled for this sort of thing and it functioned very well using the infrastructure of government-utilities-business communications, both wireline and radio. Amateur radio did not aid in that until about two days later. Utility crews had their hands full trying to restore power (successful), repair damaged lines and streets, clearing away some toppled buildings. Fire departments rolled as needed, their stations and vehicle communications functioning fine. Hospitals and care centers all had emergency electrical power, more needed than "health and welfare message traffic." We survived. "Independence Day" would have been made anyway as a comic science-fiction vehicle for Will Smith who would later wear black suits and shades. Uh-huh...even the ARS was unable to save the world from this. From Hollywood? :-) Try the movie "Frequency." 5. Hallicrafters and National Radio and Heathkit would have gone belly-up anyway. Collins Radio would have continued on into the military and commercial radio market without making any overpriced fancy amateur radios. Yaesu, Kenwood, Icom would still have been successful in the commercial and government market. SGC might still exist but in the personal sailing market. Ten-Tec might not exist. Without the ARS, one indeed wonders how long companies like Hallicrafters and National would have survived - after WWII, amateur radio was a large part of their market. Not as much as you would believe. Bill Halligan's Chicago company was busy with both prime and subcontracts for radio equipment, including the famous BC-610 used in the SCR-299 mobile HF station. Hallicrafters was busy with making HF radios for the commercial and government market, not seen in popular ham magazine ads. National Radio made a name for itself with the HRO receivers sold also to commercial and government buyers, again not that much advertisement in magazines. Very unlikely makers of things got into the radio manufacture arena during WW2, such as Lewyt Vacuum Cleaner Company who made some of the BC-339 1 KW HF transmitters I QSYed a half century ago! [name was on the ID tag riveted to the frame...:-) ] I have always been amazed at the versatility of some of the companies engaged in WWII production - it would be no small feat for a company manufacturing vacuum cleaners to retool their lines and train / hire staff to build a 1 KW radio transmitter to mil spec. ...or the Rock-Ola Jukebox Company cranking out M1 Carbines. Incredible! Paul Galvin's Motorola-to-be (also in Chicago) was cranking out the BC-1000 walkie-talkies (backpack VHF transceiver) of WW2 after stealing Dan Noble from Link, Link doing pioneering in mobile FM radio for police departments...which led to widespread use of mobile, channelized FM transceiver for land vehicles. Galvin was also organizer/central-point for the number 2 priority of all U.S. WW2 manufacturing (second only to the Manhattan Project) of quartz crystal units. Better than a half million crystal units a month made by over 30 U.S. companies for the last three years of WW2...all for the military communications needs of the USA and Great Britain. Could they have hung on by just selling radio equipment to SWLs listening to foreign commercial broadcasts? No. No need. After WW2, there was a big (but not widely advertised) push in other areas. Motorola went after the police and government mobile FM radios along with other makers. Collins Radio, already big enough in military-commercial radio, got a boost from SAC contracts for single-channel SSB and various military land radios. RCA also got into the single-channel SSB race, designed some, eventually dropped out of much of the military market. Civil aviation got going on VHF AM comm-nav and UHF radionav radios for aircraft after 1955 and the ICAO decisions-allocations. Military TACAN had morphed into DME for civil aviation, civil folks having develped VOR for bearing to ground stations. National Radio Company continued for years to build radio systems for the USN, past 1970. Collins continues to be a standard for excellence in aircraft systems. Many of the makers of today's radios for commercial-government use aren't advertised in "popular" magazines because that's not a target market area. ITT in Fort Wayne, Indiana, designed (and redesigned) the SINCGARS basic small-unit land forces radio...between them and the former Land Division of General Dynamics in Florida, a quarter million sets were produced beginning in 1989. That's more than about a hundred thousand AN/PRC-25s and -77s made since the early 60s (VHF, channelized, voice only, used in Vietnam and elsewhere). One of the Hughes Aircraft divisions designed and made a bunch of the standard HF R/Ts for land forces (AN/PRC-104 for manpack version, 20 W PEP, automatic antenna tuner) beginning in 1984. There's a whole heaping glob of various military electronics produced by many since the end of WW2, too many to recount here. Very little of that is evidenced by ads in ham magazines. Hams don't buy the stuff new and surplus radios don't generate money for the original manufacturers. It WILL be familiar to those of us who have worked in the electronics industry. Nearly all the "radio" makers of 1945 tried their hand at TV sets for civilians. Hallicrafters did (with a push-button channel selector!), so did National Radio (I bought a 7-incher in 1949). Most dropped out in the intense competition. Eventually all the U.S. makers of TV sets went belly-up although the Indianapolis division of Thompson- CSF (the old RCA Corporation plant there) still makes some color TVs on-shore. General Radio, who long ago quit making radios in favor of precision instruments, eventually dropped out. I don't know why Hallicrafters quit or what happened to National Radio other than concentrating solely on government stuff. Collins Radio is alive and well but long out of amateur markets. Icom, Yaesu, and Kenwood probably make more commercial- government radios than amateur equipment. Those are the triad from the Far East that beat the commercial pants off North American communications radio producers...except for some specialty divisions of General Electric and Motorola (two as an example in mobile radio market). Some of their commercial, non-amateur market radios are being sold through chains like HRO, but otherwise few amateurs get input from ham publications on that side of their business. All three do good in design and manufacture, are innovative and dare to hit the market with new things. Some companies may never have started up in the first place, as their beginnings were entirely in amateur radio. Before or after WW2? Bill Halligan was a ham, also Art Collins, just two early examples. Collins Radio survived and prospered, Halli- crafters didn't. The reasons aren't simplistic. Business, to survive and grow, needs a lot of things and niche markets aren't successful for the ambitious growth plans of some. Diversification may be necessary as was the growth of General Electric Company and its many divisions...RCA Corp was spun out of some of those and eventually GE bought RCA back (irony!). :-) Whether or not specialty or niche-market companies survive depends on the founders and what they want to do. They may develop a fantastic reputation through clever PR and create an intense, loyal following, but the eventual color of bookkeeping ink can catch up to them. Adulation of customers doesn't pay bills...customers have to keep buying, write checks, not write peans of praise. Business is TOUGH. [ to be continued... ] LHA / WMD |
In article , Leo
writes: Len, I must admit that I fully agree. It took me over a half hour to read through and absorb all of the information that you presented in your three replies on this subject. That's an excellent depth of knowledge you have there... Well, memory I still got...and a few years in the radio-electronics industry. Glad to share it. I learned a great deal, stand corrected on a couple of points, and am following up on the Web on some of your referencess for more information - fascinating stuff! The Thomas H. White early (USA) radio history "papers" are most interesting, putting into one place where I've seen it before in many different texts...plus some oddities like the first radio circuit to Catalina Island just off the Los Angeles coastline (not seen before). White has lots of digitized photos to go with the texts. The Corning Frequency Control (quartz crystal making division) website has a fascinating contributed paper (deep in its archives) about the tremendous effort here to make quartz crystal units during WW2. That one is written by a retired PhD who was part of the war effort. Imagine being #2 on the national priority list for strategic materials, second only to the atomic bomb! :-) Motorola has supplied some of its history previously and reproed some of that on its website. Paul Galvin's own book-biography details more about the WW2 "handie-talkie" (in use before Dec 7 1941) and the "walkie-talkie" developed by Dan Noble. Noble was lauded by the IEEE History Center for his pioneering design of mobile and portable FM radio (the old SCR-300 was not crystal controlled, but VFOed...a "calibrate" crystal oscillator checked the dial hairline position...a bit tough on design considering the environment it had to meet). National Radio Co. put out a rather thick booklet of photos of its first 50 years in the radio business...still have that along with a "golden rule" (gold anodized 12" ruler) they gave away. Did you know that one of the old National receivers was called a "Thrill Box?!?" Yup. Ought to make the purists in here cringe all over! [Bill Halligan should have thought of that...might have livened up his Chicago works towards the end] The "surplus restorer" fanatics have lots and lots of old information that is fascinating although some ascribe uneven importance and try to second-guess some of the reasons for doing designs the way they were done. One of the U.S. cosmetic companies in Noo Yawk Zitty once decided to make R-390 receivers on a mass Request-For-Bid by the government on later production (legal, the government owned the design originally done by Collins). Once the production chiefs saw the complexity of it - and differences from their cosmetics containers - they decided to simply buy some R-390s from another source, change the nameplates, and sell those at their too-low bid price. :-) I've had the opportunity to meet with some of the engineering folks in this corner of the country and hear about projects in the works. One is Hughes Aircraft's design of the PRC-104 HF transceiver (I've been a HAC employee twice, once at El Segundo, again at Canoga Park) circa the early 1980s. That's still in service and comes with a vehicular mounting power amplifier for greater PEP and a higher-power antenna tuner. The manpack basic R/T includes an automatic antenna tuner! I finally got my own copy of the TM on it a few months ago...from, of all things, a U.S. Army CD! The world and military all changing. :-) I've had lots of opportunites to see (up close and personal) the rest of the radio world...including the U.S. Army field comms for regiment size units at Fort Irwin, CA, the Desert Warfare Training Center. That was in 1989 and didn't have any idea of what lay ahead for applying such training a year and a half later in the first Gulf War. The SINCGARS program is fascinating from a design standpoint in that it pulled together some totally tough things for a nasty environmental range...such as crystal stability and being able to frequency hop 10 times per second and remain locked in the net. ITT Fort Wayne did a tremendous job on that (in my book) and did an encore when they improved it to more functions in half the bulk. Harris up in NY state is doing a similar radio for UK military, compatible with the PRC-119 family. It's outlined on ITT's website. General Dynamics Land Division did some of the production and they had a website on it once...that division went bye-bye when they lost a production contract follow-on. One only needs to keep eyes and ears open wherever one is. Lots and lots of information on the Internet now and even more in the other-than-ham-radio-history-by-a-large-US-club histories such as the old Electronics magazine (a biweekly from McGraw- Hill). It's surprising how MUCH information is available that is totally cleared for public distribution! Much appreciated! If you need some links, let me know...preferrably in private...that way it isn't messed up by the hecklers. :-) LHA / WMD |
The issue is it was not invented today. So, what's your point??? You could
say this statement about any subject. It's too, broad in texture. Narrow your point or I won't give you a grade. "Len Over 21" wrote in message ... Alternative Universe Probable Truisms - 1. There would be NO ARRL to provide "guidance" and direction. That expired before St. Hiram expired. [in this alternative universe] Newington, CT, would have no museum. 2. There would be NO morse code test since no other radio service except Maritime Radio used morse code. There would be NO need to keep a "pool of trained morse radio operators" for any national need. 3. There would be NO tales of olde-tyme ham doings because there would be no old-timers left to tell the tales...only pretenders who longed for a simpler (mythical) life way back before they were born. 4. The Titanic would have sunk anyway and several movies made about that tragedy. "Independence Day" would have been made anyway as a comic science-fiction vehicle for Will Smith who would later wear black suits and shades. 5. Hallicrafters and National Radio and Heathkit would have gone belly-up anyway. Collins Radio would have continued on into the military and commercial radio market without making any overpriced fancy amateur radios. Yaesu, Kenwood, Icom would still have been successful in the commercial and government market. SGC might still exist but in the personal sailing market. Ten-Tec might not exist. 6. Radio broadcasting would have become successful and tele- vision broadcasting even more so. "Overseas radiotelephone" would still exist via the first HF SSB radios in the 1930s. The first VHF FM mobiles would still be tested by various police departments in the late 1930s. The military would still be the first HT user courtesy of Galvin (later Motorola)...and the back- pack radio ("walkie-talkie" again from Galvin)...and the radio relay (WW2) and VHF repeater (Korean War) uses...and single- channel HF SSB (USAF, post WW2)...and aircraft VHF AM (WW2). HF RTTY circuits would have been formed before WW2 and continued on in wide-bandwidth HF SSB, later to have much higher data rates from transferrence of modem and information theory techniques. Cross-country microwave radio relay would still exist for hundreds of telephone circuits and many TV circuits on a single link. Government and business would still have tens of thousands of HT and mobile radios courtesy of the military WW2 legacy and the invention of transistors and integrated circuits. Communications satellites would still exist as soon as rockets could put them up there (first published paper on that by an up-coming science fiction writer named Arthur C. Clarke, then a "boffin" in the RAF right after WW2). All sorts of watercraft would have VHF radios in harbors due to the success of small land VHF radios. Radio- sondes by the hundreds of thousands would be used up annually using simple one-tube (pencil triode in a sheet metal cavity) transmitters in low microwave frequencies. The cellular telephone (past legal age in our universe) would still exist by the millions, morphed into a single-hand package with built-in video capability. There would still be "headphone radio" receivers for personal use, sometimes merged with CD players. "Wireless" would take on a new meaning as hundreds of thousands of data transceivers linked computers without wires. "Shortwave" broadcasting would still be trying out digital sound and finding out that it works despite dire warnings of impossibility. The U.S. military would still be using digital VHF manpack radios with encryption for voice and data for a total of a quarter million sets. None of the preceding required any "ham radio pioneering." 7. Arthur Godfrey would still get his TV show cancelled. Barry Goldwater would still unsuccessfully run for U.S. President. [the fate of Julius LaRosa is unknown in this universe] 8. The Federal Communications Commission would still exist on approximately the same scale and still trying to privatize commercial operator testing to save money. Radio use by non-hams after 1934 grew sufficiently large to require the agency to continue. 9. "CB" would have been created anyway, a fore-runner of the license-free personal radio wave of the future. [it is 46 years old in our universe which already has FRS, R-C, cordless telephones and wireless gizmos of all kinds] 10. Tens of thousands of electronic/radio hobbyists would be bereft of Title, Status, Privilege of the Royal-equivalent. Amateur Radio License that allowed them to add a callsign behind their names to show how good and expert they were in "radio." That would make it a bitter scene with many more fights of the amateurs (minority) with professionals (majority). LHA / WMD |
In article , "Dan Mattingly N0FQN"
writes: The issue is it was not invented today. So, what's your point??? You could say this statement about any subject. It's too, broad in texture. Narrow your point or I won't give you a grade. Oh, wow, another LITERALIST joins the group grope! You really don't understand the context of the original subject question or that alternate realities are INFINITE and that any and all such alternatives are as valid, true, etc., as any other? To sum it up, Mistah Supreme Grade Literalist, it can be said that, in an ALTERNATE REALITY, the rest of the radio world would have gone on, advanced, improved, innovated, invented, grown by leaps and bounds WITHOUT amateur radio...just as it did in this present reality when amateur radio does exist. You want to "give me a grade" that is an "F" because you don't like to hear about the Rest Of The Radio World? Go ahead. The rest of the radio world doesn't really care because it long ago TOOK OVER all of the innovation, invention, development, pioneering, etc., etc., etc. You don't want to believe that? Look around you past the League propaganda with its history of sinning by omission in the "history of (amateur) radio," implying that amateurs "pioneered" everything (they didn't). ARRL wasn't even the first national radio club in the USA. That "distinction" belongs to the Radio Club of America...still in existance (as it was five years before the League was formed) but no longer favoring amateur activities over other things in all of radio. Back in the beginning of "radio," generally accredited by historians to be 1896 (108 years ago), there were neither amateurs OR professionals. Hardly anyone knew anything and it couldn't have been a big business. Heck and darn (expletives are not allowed in here lest the Puritans become offended and outraged), early radio was hardly advanced in "radio" technology by 1920, two years after WW1 ended...and Ed Armstrong received his superheterodyne receiver patent (applied for 2 years earlier)...and ol' Hiram lobbied for the return of amateur radio activity (thereby achieving immortality and sainthood via the League). The original question was conjecture on What Would Happen IFF (thats "If and only If" in literary conjecture spelling) Amateur Radio were "invented" TODAY instead of being shut down past 1919. Try some concentration on CONJECTURE, not some "lecturing" based on what happened in the present reality...with all the ass-umptions of your "instructorship" and "ability to give grades." I say the REST OF THE RADIO WORLD (a heckuva lot bigger than amateur radio can ever be) would have gone on ANYWAY because hardly any of that growth, innovation, invention, etc., is NOT based on amateur activity. I've been IN that rest of the radio world for half a century and have very little evidence that any of it's growth was ever due to amateurism. Prove me "wrong" about an ALTERNATE REALITY with your "instructorship" and "teaching credentials" and "ability to 'give' grades." Pffft. Consider yourself fired from the class, the key to the teacher's lounge taken away, your parking space eliminated. No pension. Take it up with the Bored of Education in the Alternate Reality. LHA / WMD |
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Leo wrote in message . ..
rotflmfao!! This is definitely a first - somebody flaming somebody because they missed an opportunity to flame somebody else. Somebody get the Guinness Book of Records people on the phone - quick!! I missed the point where this had anything to do with flaming anyone, Lennie...I mean Leo...(yeah...right...) Steve, K4YZ |
"Dan Mattingly N0FQN" wrote in message ...
The issue is it was not invented today. So, what's your point??? You could say this statement about any subject. It's too, broad in texture. Narrow your point or I won't give you a grade. That's what I find amusing about these threads. People want to play "what if" but they aren't describing the situation where ham radio would be invented today. The way I see it, the real reason they can imagine amateur radio is because it's been around all these years. Form follows function. The proponents of this thread can't really explain why amateur radio would arise today, without the bias of the past, so really they can't define what would arise if it did. CB is a good example of something coming later. "Radio for everyone" or something like that. Came about around sixty years after people started playing with radio out of the laboratory. They could only offer up a small slice of the spectrum, and that by taking from amateur radio. And while technology did limit things, realistically the only model was that of amateur radio, ie direct between two stations. Now admittedly early proponents of CB often came from amateur radio, but practically as soon as the service was created, it was referred to in hobby terms. Not "this is a radio service that you can use to help your hobby" but a hobby in itself. Look in Popular Electronics from the time, and you'll see articles by Don Stoner and Tom Kneital to this effect. (And warnings from the FCC that it ain't a hobby band.) If amateur radio had not existed, what would CB have been like? It recently occurred to me that far more people are using radio for communication than at any point in the past. But instead of radio, they are seen as telephone technology. Yes, cellphones. It makes good use of the spectrum, it is something relatively familiar, and realistically, people are more interested in reliable communication with those they know. On one hand, we have people lamenting that amateur radio can't compete with computers and cellphones today. Yet, then others turn around and wonder what amateur radio would be like if started today. I can't really conceive of amateur radio starting today, because I'm not sure what the purpose would be. And once you start with that premise, free of knowing that amateur radio has existed all these years, only then can one begin to imagine what (if anything) would be available to such a hobby if started today. I also note that the topic wasn't about "what would the world be like without amateur radio" but "what would amateur radio be like if started today". So yes, one can look back and imagine a history of radio without amateurs, but the two are indeed linked. Take out that history from amateur radio, and I really don't see it starting up today. Michael VE2BVW |
"Michael Black" wrote | Take out that history from amateur radio, and I really | don't see it starting up today. You absolutely NAILED it Michael. Amateur radio was started and sustained until post-WWII by tinkerers, experimenters, and technically orientated types. That our service continues to exist today is a miracle, attributable mainly to the efforts of RAC, ARRL, DARC, JARL, IARU, RAE, RSGB, and all the other national societies who so far have convinced the regulators to allow us to continue. The notion of a "start up" amateur radio service or any personal radio service with such broad gifts of spectrum and freedom to experiment as we enjoy wouldn't gain any traction at all in todays technological environment. 73, de Hans, K0HB |
Michael Black wrote:
"Dan Mattingly N0FQN" wrote in message ... The issue is it was not invented today. So, what's your point??? You could say this statement about any subject. It's too, broad in texture. Narrow your point or I won't give you a grade. That's what I find amusing about these threads. People want to play "what if" but they aren't describing the situation where ham radio would be invented today. The way I see it, the real reason they can imagine amateur radio is because it's been around all these years. Form follows function. The proponents of this thread can't really explain why amateur radio would arise today, without the bias of the past, so really they can't define what would arise if it did. Go back and read the initial message in the thread and the modifications in the next couple posts. If you don't want to play along, DON'T! I gave an inital situation, in which nothing was given back to amateur radio after WW1 and it died out. I then added some more qualifications after N2EY asked for them. snip I also note that the topic wasn't about "what would the world be like without amateur radio" but "what would amateur radio be like if started today". So yes, one can look back and imagine a history of radio without amateurs, but the two are indeed linked. Take out that history from amateur radio, and I really don't see it starting up today. Umm, yeah. Sorry to bother you with the thread. DLTDHYOTAOTWO! Other good reasons for not participating in the thread: Well, amateur radio didn't go away after WW1, so why are we talking about this? Well, things wouldn't be like they are now, so how do we know how they would be? Well, what if there were no hypothetical situations? Well, this is all well and good, but what does it have to do with Morse Code or Kim's callsign? - Mike KB3EIA - |
KØHB wrote:
"Michael Black" wrote | Take out that history from amateur radio, and I really | don't see it starting up today. You absolutely NAILED it Michael. Amateur radio was started and sustained until post-WWII by tinkerers, experimenters, and technically orientated types. That our service continues to exist today is a miracle, attributable mainly to the efforts of RAC, ARRL, DARC, JARL, IARU, RAE, RSGB, and all the other national societies who so far have convinced the regulators to allow us to continue. The notion of a "start up" amateur radio service or any personal radio service with such broad gifts of spectrum and freedom to experiment as we enjoy wouldn't gain any traction at all in todays technological environment. In one of the first posts, I cam up with the spectrum we would recieve. Me in an earlier life: Aww, don't make me define too much Jim! Okay, lets say that in the rebirth, fueled by concerns for homeland security, that a a loosely organized group of non-professional communication savvy people that might be able to respond to disasters or the like is made. Assume that it is decided that this group should have some technical abilities, so that if need be, they might stand a chance of getting a station operational under adverse conditions. The philosophy is that these people would pursue the service as a hobby, working for enjoyment while honing operational skills. Let's say that amateurs are allocated some frequencies. I'll assume that the bands I not will be similar in width to what we have now: 2 meters 10 meters 20 meters 40 meters - or nearby, away from broadcasting frequencies 80 meters The various frequencies are chosen to take advantage of propagation characteristics. No UHF or above, no 160 meters. Seems like a reasonable starting point to me. Obviously things would be different, there would be plenty of differences, and the idea was that there might be some discussion of that. So you and Mr Black just say there wouldn't be any such thing. Thanks for the input! ;^) - Mike KB3EIA - |
On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 18:14:17 -0500, Mike Coslo
wrote: DLTDHYOTAOTWO Mike - you've piqued my curiosity - Was ist los? 73, Leo |
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Leo wrote: On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 18:14:17 -0500, Mike Coslo wrote: DLTDHYOTAOTWO Mike - you've piqued my curiosity - Was ist los? Don't Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out (a little paraphrased, you'll get the other OTA in the middle, I think! 8^) - Mike KB3EIA - |
"Steve Robeson, K4CAP" wrote | | This thread, Michael, was started by a known newsgroup antagonist | who is not, himself, an Amateur Radio licensee...Not even a Novice | Class. His perception of "radio" is strictly from that of a person | looking to make a buck...nothing else. | Mike Coslo isn't a ham? What's this "KB3EIA" business he puts in his signature then? 73, de Hans, K0HB |
"Mike Coslo" wrote | | So you and Mr Black just say there wouldn't be any such thing. | That's correct. If amateur radio did not already exist there is Zero point Zero Zero Zero (and I'm rounding upwards) probability that it would be created today. 73, de Hans, K0HB |
"KØHB" wrote in message hlink.net...
"Steve Robeson, K4CAP" wrote | | This thread, Michael, was started by a known newsgroup antagonist | who is not, himself, an Amateur Radio licensee...Not even a Novice | Class. His perception of "radio" is strictly from that of a person | looking to make a buck...nothing else. | Mike Coslo isn't a ham? What's this "KB3EIA" business he puts in his signature then? You're just a bit too eager to jump into someones Wheaties, Your One-Upmanship. That thread was ORIGINATED by Lennie. Please refer to: Message 1 in thread From: Len Over 21 ) Subject: If Ham Radio Were Invented Today (reprise) For YOUR benefit, Master Chief, I point out the words "MESSAGE 1 IN THREAD" and the "FROM" line. Now...Next time you find yourself a bit over-anxious to try and humilate someone with your dazzling self righteousness, I hope you'll be sure you have your facts right... Steve, K4YZ |
Now I got it!
73, Leo On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 22:21:05 -0500, Mike Coslo wrote: Leo wrote: On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 18:14:17 -0500, Mike Coslo wrote: DLTDHYOTAOTWO Mike - you've piqued my curiosity - Was ist los? Don't Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out (a little paraphrased, you'll get the other OTA in the middle, I think! 8^) - Mike KB3EIA - |
Steve Robeson, K4CAP wrote:
"KØHB" wrote in message hlink.net... "Steve Robeson, K4CAP" wrote | | This thread, Michael, was started by a known newsgroup antagonist | who is not, himself, an Amateur Radio licensee...Not even a Novice | Class. His perception of "radio" is strictly from that of a person | looking to make a buck...nothing else. | Mike Coslo isn't a ham? What's this "KB3EIA" business he puts in his signature then? You're just a bit too eager to jump into someones Wheaties, Your One-Upmanship. That thread was ORIGINATED by Lennie. Please refer to: Message 1 in thread From: Len Over 21 ) Subject: If Ham Radio Were Invented Today (reprise) For YOUR benefit, Master Chief, I point out the words "MESSAGE 1 IN THREAD" and the "FROM" line. Now...Next time you find yourself a bit over-anxious to try and humilate someone with your dazzling self righteousness, I hope you'll be sure you have your facts right... Ahh, the confusion lies in that I originated the thread, and then Lenover21 - for reasons unknown - perhaps not to taint himself with replying to a thread I started, then started a new thread that was titled the same, save for the "reprise". - Mike KB3EIA - |
Mike Coslo wrote in message ...
Now...Next time you find yourself a bit over-anxious to try and humilate someone with your dazzling self righteousness, I hope you'll be sure you have your facts right... Ahh, the confusion lies in that I originated the thread, and then Lenover21 - for reasons unknown - perhaps not to taint himself with replying to a thread I started, then started a new thread that was titled the same, save for the "reprise". Therein lies some of the reason for confusion...I shudda known Lennie would have somehting to do with it...But that STILL doesn't excuse Hans' sniping since the thread group he was quoting from WAS the one His Putziness had generated...As were the comments I was refering to...If I had slipped up like that, the Master Chief and His Most Putziness would have had a Field Day (with apologies to the ARRL...) BTW, Mike, you snowed in? My YL is absolutely livid that we AREN'T getting any of the snow...I grew up in it so I HAVE had my fill! 73 Steve, K4YZ |
Steve Robeson, K4CAP wrote:
Mike Coslo wrote in message ... Now...Next time you find yourself a bit over-anxious to try and humilate someone with your dazzling self righteousness, I hope you'll be sure you have your facts right... Ahh, the confusion lies in that I originated the thread, and then Lenover21 - for reasons unknown - perhaps not to taint himself with replying to a thread I started, then started a new thread that was titled the same, save for the "reprise". Therein lies some of the reason for confusion...I shudda known Lennie would have somehting to do with it...But that STILL doesn't excuse Hans' sniping since the thread group he was quoting from WAS the one His Putziness had generated...As were the comments I was refering to...If I had slipped up like that, the Master Chief and His Most Putziness would have had a Field Day (with apologies to the ARRL...) Agreed. I've noticed that Hans seems to get a nasty case of cabin fever around this time of year, and becomes a hammer in search of nails. It's his only tool, and *everything* looks like a nail. BTW, Mike, you snowed in? My YL is absolutely livid that we AREN'T getting any of the snow...I grew up in it so I HAVE had my fill! We have maybe 8 inches on the ground. Roads are slippery enough that I keep the Jeep in 4WD full time. It isn't too bad, but it isn't a pretty kind of snow. Yesterday and today most of the schools in the center of the state are closed. But they are all wusses! 8^) - Mike KB3EIA - |
In article .net, "KØHB"
writes: "Steve Robeson, K4CAP" wrote | | This thread, Michael, was started by a known newsgroup antagonist | who is not, himself, an Amateur Radio licensee...Not even a Novice | Class. His perception of "radio" is strictly from that of a person | looking to make a buck...nothing else. | Mike Coslo isn't a ham? What's this "KB3EIA" business he puts in his signature then? The gunnery nurse seems to think that his PC is infested with an A.I. virus that masquerades as all kinds of different communicators. It's getting so that he can't tell reality from his internal fantasy. Excuse me, I'm going off to practice my K0HB, Billy Beeper, and Leo posting. :-) LHA / WMD |
In article k.net, "KØHB"
writes: "Michael Black" wrote | Take out that history from amateur radio, and I really | don't see it starting up today. You absolutely NAILED it Michael. Amateur radio was started and sustained until post-WWII by tinkerers, experimenters, and technically orientated types. "Technically oriented," not 'orientated.' They were using information on radio hardware theory that was being refined and detailed by commercial, government, and military radio users. Principally that was in the period from 1900 to the mid-1930s. Lots and lots of non-amateurs were very busy trying to get a slice of what appeared to be a lucrative new technology. A similar happening started in personal computing in the late 1970s, many amateurs involved, until the USERS and the makers got going to make the personal computer a tool for everyday life and work. For a more widened view of early radio development, the text history by Hugh G. J. Aitken, "The Continuous Wave, Technology and American Radio 1900-1932," Princeton University Press 1985 is recommended as a source. The first "driver" of radio technology was the maritime world. Maritime radio was considered indespensible for ocean vessels, giving them something they had never had before - communications beyond the horizon. Some amateurs, restricted to sources from a CT publisher, will insist that amateurs "discovered short waves" 83 years ago. Not quite since the Marconi Company first noted the long leaps in "short wave" paths 84 years ago. Some 82 years ago a commercial communications carrier was already trying out HF on several wavelengths ("down" to 30 meters) to improve daylight radio transmission paths. Commercial concerns, especially broadcasting, were the drivers of radio technology after WW1.. Those who do 24/7 radio communications are more likely to notice effects than amateurs limited to a few hours each day. The commercial-industrial-governmental-military users of radio were already migrating upwards iin frequency from the late 1930s and especially so after WW2. However, the "tinkerers, experimenters, and technically" oriented folks have ALWAYS existed and grew more numerous after the "military surplus" years just following WW2. That is most notable in NON-ham electronics activities such as robotics, personal computing, music systems, security-alarm-control applications. Radio control of model aircraft and other vehicles is a big market (AMA has as many or slightly more members than ARRL). AMA got a large block of frequencies at 72 MHz just for R/C all by itself. Despite the grousing, bitching, and whining of "experimenters" unable to get the exact parts for copying a magazine article project from Radio Shack, electronic parts remain on the market, as numerous as they were in 1947 or 1967 (actually more so) but are not solely concerned with the so-called alalog radio field. Even the giant and growing Fry's Electronics chain carries a whole aisle of packaged components from capacitors to circuit board blanks. Modern day electronics "experimenters" have gone well beyond radio in the scope of their fun. While some hams look with distaste, disgust, and some with pejorations of evil upon "CB," the 27 MHz kind of personal communications opened in 1958 (that's a mere 46 years ago) WITHOUT the amateurs and expanded enormously when the offshore designs and manufacturings took off. Offshore design and manufacture facilities have greatly aided the availability of everything from parts to finished systems at relatively low cost. That allowed the hobbyists to pursue all kinds of areas of electronics design and construction in home workshops. Had amateur radio remained cut off after WW1, there would have been NO ARRL to lobby or do anything. The club clocks would have been reset to the competition for national memberships of the pre-1914 times...telegrams and telegraphy messages would still have gotten through in the commercial-government world of radio. Broadcasting would have expanded enormously after 1920 despite amateur activities along with receiver development and all the peripheral electronics around "radio" (everything from wireless mikes to radio-coupled phonographs and eventually to stereo- binaural sound and magnetic recording for "hi-fi" sound). HF would still have been a pre-WW2 hotbed of commercial-government communicatios carriers, everything from 4 voice channel width SSB to single-channel RTTY. By 1938 some police departments had been "experimenting" (trying out) mobile FM, with success. Once rocketry had become relatively practical after WW2, the commercial satellite communications "birds" would have existed (Telstar was a US telephone company project). Now the equatorial geosynchrous orbit is FILLED with comm sats (about every 3 degrees or so) and the "long-distance" radio communications goes over them rather than old HF (if not over fiber-optics cables or microwave radio relay having even more bandwidth). That our service continues to exist today is a miracle, attributable mainly to the efforts of RAC, ARRL, DARC, JARL, IARU, RAE, RSGB, and all the other national societies who so far have convinced the regulators to allow us to continue. Ah, but in this hypothetical alternate reality, there would be NO such organizations. They MIGHT form again but there is NOTHING to guarantee that they would be even close to doing what they do now. Evolution of amateur radio organizations happened just as it did to every other radio service...some would survive, others would not. The "selling job" of these FUTURE clubs (not really "societies") would be difficult since they would have NO "track record" to fall back on, no mythical claims of being necessary in any emergency, or any of the legends they loved to trot out. It would be back to Square One for most of them except for the first one, the Radio Club of America. Remember that the ARRL began as a local CT radio club with the ideal of serving as a freebie message-forwarding service. In today's world it would be a Hacker club "hacking" on Western Union's and other telegram suppliers' high telegram fees. All the high-sounding PR BS of today hadn't happened and all the ARRL would have to show for itself in this new alternate reality is some nebulous, rationalized message relay Hacking. Not a good thing to expand upon and not something to convince regulators that they should allocate bands and things to amateurs. That could be done in a different way. But, without the "tradition" and "glory of service" (or whatever) that has been the propaganda tool of the membership organizations' spoon-feeding of What To Do, What To Say, How To Act, the present-day orgs couldn't do it the same way they have for years. In this alternate reality, the word "ham" might never have caught on. It was a pejorative given by professional telegraphers to amateurs originally (from ARRL's own etymological definition). "Amateur" is not a bad thing since there are many and varied amateur activities of all kinds, especially in sports. "Ham" as a prefix has never been a good label, especially in show business. My speculation is that HF would definitely be open for allocation for recreational activity. The commercial and government users of HF have vacated much of it, use it primarily for time-frequency standards, broadcasting, much less communications than two to three decades ago. If R/C models can get a block of lower VHF frequencies, I'm sure that amateur radio could get some HF bands for fun and games. The notion of a "start up" amateur radio service or any personal radio service with such broad gifts of spectrum and freedom to experiment as we enjoy wouldn't gain any traction at all in todays technological environment. A quaint notion based almost entirely on the past present reality happenings...not to mention several boatloads of mythology and legend PR that is more puffery than substance. Sorry, not bought. There is absolutely NOTHING "wrong" with getting a block of frequencies just for recreation. R/C did it and modelers have NEVER claimed anything close to aiding homeland security or being of some vital and important aid in times of emergency. 27 MHz CB is already 46 years old. FRS and GMRS exists today as do almost innumerable "cordless" and "wireless" low power RF communications devices of many purposes, from VHF on up to C Band (5 GHz) in microwaves. I say there would definitely be a lot of personal communications "radios" in this alternate reality, regardless of amateur claims (in this universe) of pioneering them. But, in this alternate reality, there might be some bitter and prolonged fighting in urban and semi-urban residential areas as amateur radio folks tried to put up large, ugly wire and tubing structures (beautiful to them, maybe, but a decided eyesore to non-radio neighbors). Amateur radio, if it came to be, would have a decidedly different scope of activities in this alternate universe. It would BEGIN to evolve, probably to something else, since there was no "tradition" to "preserve" nor any set of 1930s Standards and Practices to uphold 7 decades later. Radio amateurism would begin ANEW. LHA / WMD |
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