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February 11th 04, 04:04 PM
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On Wed, 11 Feb 2004 03:25:54 GMT, "Dee D. Flint"
wrote: "Leo" wrote in message .. . On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 23:32:40 GMT, "Dee D. Flint" wrote: "Leo" wrote in message .. . On 10 Feb 2004 09:52:50 -0800, (N2EY) wrote: snip Without the ARRL, do you think we'd still have amateur radio? I don't. Um, the rest of the planet does not have the ARRL, and amateur radio is still going strong there..... snip 73 de Jim, N2EY 73, Leo Without the ARRL, US amateur radio would have remained permanently closed after World War I. The other countries did not have enough amateurs to justify keeping the frequencies and it is highly probably that they would have all gone to commercial interests. Everyone wanted the shortwave frequencies at that time and without the US, the foreign amateurs would not have had enough leverage to have held on to the spectrum. Dee, Perhaps, but I'm not comfortable that it is fact. In 1917 (or 1916, depending on the source), there were some 6,000 amateurs operating in the US - not sure how many there were when amateur radio was turned back on in 1919, but it was probably less than that, due to losses in the war. Even at 6,000, though, would that constitute a sufficient number of amateurs to influence policy on a global scale? Keeping in mind that the US, as a member of the ITU, has voting privileges but not an overwhelming influence. Foreign stations still boom over here today on part of our 40 meter band - because the ITU agreements say they can. The Americas can request, and debate, and vote upon, but not control ITU policy. I doubt very much that they could back then, either. Although records in the early 1900s are sketchy, if you pick periods in time that are documented, the number of US amateurs was roughly equal to the rest of the world combined. This is still true today if one excludes Japan, which has over 1 million licensed users but with an abysmally low activity rate (Japanese licenses are for life, many children are licensed in school programs and never use the licenses, and no renewal is required). As of our last restructuring,Canadian licences (actually, "Certificates of Proficiency") are also valid for life - no renewal required. While theUS would not have been an "overwhelming" influence, it still would have been a major player. How long could amateurs in other countries have been effective against government and commercial interests in the ITU if the US had remained in an "amateur radio black hole?" It is difficult to say of course but there would have been much less strength available to resist the encroachment. Yes one cannot say with absolute certainty which way it would have gone but I do believe that amateur radio would be a lot less common now if the US had not been involved. Also keep in mind that due to our form of government, our civilian population (in this case hams) do have more influence in shaping our governments approach to items like amateur radio than is and was prevalent in a lot of countries. I wonder if that is true - the FCC does not appear to have a history of implementing what the ARRL requests, for example - and they represent many thousands of amateurs. Sure, comments and suggestions are encouraged - but it is not a true democratic process - the FCC is under no obligation whatsoever to implement the will of the majority. Plus, the comment and review procedure is massive - thousands of individual public comments and proposals to go through, another round of proposals and responses, then review, and on and on - a juggernaut of a process that may well take years to run its course. Here, Industry Canada asked our national radio association (RAC) to gather data on what Canadian amateurs wanted to do with licensing requirements if the Morse requirement was dropped at WRC-03. The RAC set up a web page with a questionnaire on it, and opened it up to all licenced Canadian amateurs (not just RAC members). The results were collected and tabulated, recommendations prepared, and forwarded to IC for their consideration. As licensing changes within the Amateur service do not have an impact on either the general public or commercial interests, this approach makes sense. Now there is a system that amateurs have direct influence over! Also, look at how quickly amateurs in Great Britain, Australia, Germany and many others were able to have the Morse requirement dropped following WRC-03. No red tape, no seemingly endless discussion - just done. Many did this in direct response to the request of their own national radio clubs to do so if permitted post-WRC-03. Now there is real democracy in action! According to The Wayback Machine, it wasn't commercial interests that wanted control of these bands post-WWI (all radio bands, actually!) in the US - it was the US Military. The ARRL did a fine job of lobbying the US government to have the frequencies reopened to US amateurs - but I don't think that the rest of the world would have walked away from amateur radio forever if the ARRL had been unsuccessful. And, in the absence of the ARRL, other alliances may have been formed to lobby for this right - just like they did in the rest of the world. I did indeed mean to include military. Sorry about that. In the context of lobbying the US government for keeping amateur frequencies and re-opening them after WWI, I do believe that in the absence of the ARRL another body could have formed (and probably would have) and done the same as the ARRL. But you know what, we would then be having this same discussion of "ZZZZ" organization and the people who today slam the ARRL would be slamming the "ZZZZ." The rest of us would then be defending "ZZZZ". Same game, different names. But Dee, other governments re-opened the amateur bands after WW1 without the assistance of the ARRL - in many foreign countries. I'm neither praising nor slamming the ARRL - just stating that their achievement was a local, not a global, one. Canadian hams were back on the air months before the ARRL's victory in the US - I'm sure that others were as well in various places around the world. Seems natural enough - activities were suspended due to the conflict, and reinstated after the hostilities ended. Not everyone's military tried to keep the bands indefinitely for their own private use! In fact, your happy ham neighbours to the North were legally transmitting again as of May 1, 1919 - a full 5 months before the US amateurs were allowed back on the air on October 1st of that year. As I recall from history class, the US military hasn't attemped to enforce US policy up here since 1814 - and never successfully prior to that But would they have had enough clout in subsequent ITU conferences to stave off the commercial and military seekers of the bands. In any disagreement, you don't want the strongest player sitting on the sidelines or playing on the other side. I don't see why not - the ITU voting structure isn't that heavily weighted based on the size of the US - otherwise, they would be in business strictly to globalize US policy. Or, countries like China could assert that as they have 4 times the population of the US, they should control 4 times as many votes. Countries like Japan could claim that they have 3 times the number of licenced Amateurs, and monopolize the process. If that were the case, how many countries would have remained members of the ITU? None, I'd say. Dee D. Flint, N8UZE 73, Leo |
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