William wrote:

"Dee D. Flint" wrote in message igy.com...

"William" wrote in message
.com...

"Dee D. Flint" wrote in message

igy.com...

Old timers dropping out will not do a thing. There are enough new

people

coming in that they won't even notice. Instead we will be left with an

even

more unbalanced viewpoint.

Depends on your point of view. I'm going to encourage more cranky old
hams to drop out.

Although new versus old does cause friction, the balance is still needed.
The new bring fresh enthusiasm and new ideas. The old have the experience
to weigh these ideas and modify them so they will work or to spot ideas that
have been tried in the past and known to fail. We need both old and new.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE


Here we go again with the demographics. The ARS is a geriatric service.

Too bad they took the birth date out of the database.

She's *kind* of right, Brian. I'd modify it that the oldsters should be
the helpful type, not the ones spitting bile about how awful or stupid
everyone is anymore. 8^) I really enjoy talking with old timers about
ham radio and radio in general as long as I don't get an earful of vitriol.

- Mike KB3EIA -

"Screw'em" wrote in
news:c1%Qb.118600$5V2.616514@attbi_s53:

I am with the poster who sed:

-- I have a completely different opinion!

Join the ARRL today! \

73 From The Wilderness Keyboard



I won't join the ARRL because full membership now requires a frontal
lobotomy. If you see your section manager or Division director at a
meeting or Hamfest, ask them how their surgury went, then slap the
**** out of them for me.



I'm afraid you *will* need to slap them in order to get their attention.
The BOD doesn't listen to members or hams like me anymore.

If the ARRL leadership had cared about the state of amateur radio and the
quality of its operators, they never would have made the proposals that
they've made over the last 11 years. To them its let us get more morons
licensed so we can get more money in the ole bank account. The ARRL
leadership doesn't care for quality, capable operators. But their plan
will back fire on them and ham radio has and will suffer. When you hand
free licenses to everyone, those people don't appreciate it and probably
won't buy a membership. You always appreciate something more when you
had to work harder to get it and you'll take care of it. But to the ARRL
it's all about money and I'll bet anyone in this group that if they get
their way with their proposal they will offer a 12 dollar discount to new
ham non-members like they did at the last restructuring. "Take a ham
test, and we'll discount new membership on the price of your VEC test
fee!"

Oh well, Nuff said. Most of you don't care anyway. Back to listening to
the lids and CBer type behavior on the bands. 73


KB7ADL

Heres something better: From the ARRLs FAG:

"Did ARRL poll its members on this proposal? How was it formulated?

Because ARRL is a representative democracy, ARRL Directors listened to members
in their respective divisions while considering these issues. Directors heard
from many amateurs in their divisions, and some directors conducted their own
surveys. The final proposal represents the Board's best effort at changes to
the Amateur Radio licensing structure needed to carry us through the next 10 to
15 years."

Now this makes one wonder how many members did they get Info from. Was it 5,
10, 20, or even 100. The point being before the ARRL puts forth such a
proposal, it would be well Advised to determine what a Majority of there
MEMBERSHIP was thinking. Untill the ARRL provides actuall figures, I can no
longer see where they represent there MEMBERS WISHES.
As for me, with 25 Years as a Member, they will never get 1 more RED PENNY
from me for anything.

"Carl R. Stevenson" wrote

| 3) free upgrades for Techs and Tech Pluses to General?
|
| I was initially against this idea, thinking that taking the additional
| written element should be a requirement. However, I've read
| Ed Hare's excellent *personal, not ARRL policy* comments
| on this from eham, and find that they make sense to me - a
| compelling case for a "one-shot adjustment" to
| make things clean in a way that nobody loses anything.

I haven't seen Ed Hare's argument, so I can't comment on it. If the
"adjustment" were some minor clean-up to sweep up the remnants of a long
abandoned legacy class and the number of licenses involved was trivial
(under 10,000), then I'd have no problem with it.

But we aren't dealing with some trival number, we are dealing with
almost 2/3rds of existing licensees.

The message ARRL sends with this proposal is "our General (and Extra)
qualifications" are more strenuous than need be. Such a free-pass would
establish that all these hundreds of thousands of licensees have been
qualified for General (or Extra) all along. At that moment it is
established, ipso facto, that the current Technician examination is
sufficient for the 'new General' and that the last Advanced examination
is sufficient for the 'new Extra'.

Up until now I have never raised the cry of "dumbing down", but such a
mass give-away would set a new lower bar for all future qualification
levels in the Amateur Radio service, and your position allegedly in
support of strenuous technical qualification standards rings hollow
indeed.

73, de Hans, K0HB

"WA8ULX" wrote

| Because ARRL is a representative democracy, ARRL Directors listened to
members
| in their respective divisions while considering these issues.
Directors heard
| from many amateurs in their divisions, and some directors conducted
their own
| surveys. The final proposal represents the Board's best effort at
changes to
| the Amateur Radio licensing structure needed to carry us through the
next 10 to
| 15 years."

I, for one, suggest that popularity polls and beauty contests are not a
particularly good method for influencing and guiding the evolution of
the Amateur Radio service.

This is particularly true for the National Association for Amateur
Radio, which in my not-so-humble-opinion is abdicating its
responsibility to show leadership and vision, but has cobbled together
an unimaginative proposal lacking both, and copping out by passing it
off as "listened to members"

An example of an alternative is at http://tinyurl.com/wce9

73, de Hans, K0HB

"Mike Coslo" wrote in message
...
William wrote:

"Dee D. Flint" wrote in message
igy.com...

"William" wrote in message
.com...

"Dee D. Flint" wrote in message

igy.com...

Old timers dropping out will not do a thing. There are enough new

people

coming in that they won't even notice. Instead we will be left with
an

even

more unbalanced viewpoint.

Depends on your point of view. I'm going to encourage more cranky old
hams to drop out.

Although new versus old does cause friction, the balance is still
needed.
The new bring fresh enthusiasm and new ideas. The old have the
experience
to weigh these ideas and modify them so they will work or to spot ideas
that
have been tried in the past and known to fail. We need both old and
new.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE


Here we go again with the demographics. The ARS is a geriatric service.

Too bad they took the birth date out of the database.

She's *kind* of right, Brian. I'd modify it that the oldsters should be
the helpful type, not the ones spitting bile about how awful or stupid
everyone is anymore. 8^) I really enjoy talking with old timers about
ham radio and radio in general as long as I don't get an earful of
vitriol.

- Mike KB3EIA -

Keep in mind also that the vitriolic ones tend to be highly vocal and
noticeable thus giving people the impression that there are a lot of them
when in reality they are only a handful.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

I was initially against this idea, thinking that taking the additional
| written element should be a requirement. However, I've read
| Ed Hare's excellent *personal, not ARRL policy* comments
| on this from eham, and find that they make sense to me - a
| compelling case for a "one-shot adjustment" to
| make things clean in a way that nobody loses anything.


I missed this, but as usual Mr CBplusser himself backs down. How many times
has Karl stated that he would fight to the end if what is about to happens.

In article .net, "KØHB"
writes:

"Carl R. Stevenson" wrote

| 3) free upgrades for Techs and Tech Pluses to General?
|
| I was initially against this idea, thinking that taking the additional
| written element should be a requirement. However, I've read
| Ed Hare's excellent *personal, not ARRL policy* comments
| on this from eham, and find that they make sense to me - a
| compelling case for a "one-shot adjustment" to
| make things clean in a way that nobody loses anything.

I haven't seen Ed Hare's argument, so I can't comment on it.

Me neither - can you post a link?

If the
"adjustment" were some minor clean-up to sweep up the remnants of a long
abandoned legacy class and the number of licenses involved was trivial
(under 10,000), then I'd have no problem with it.

But we aren't dealing with some trival number, we are dealing with
almost 2/3rds of existing licensees.

??

Let's see - as of January 15, 2004:

Novice - 32,718
Technician - 259,949
Technician Plus - 62,714
General - 141,443
Advanced - 81,961
Extra - 104,946
Total - 683,731

Total Technicians and Pluses: 322,663

322,663/683,731 = about 47.2% of existing hams getting a free upgrade to
General
81,961/683,731 = about 11.9% of existing hams getting a free upgrade to Extra

Total of about 59.1% getting a free upgrade - wow!

The message ARRL sends with this proposal is "our General (and Extra)
qualifications" are more strenuous than need be. Such a free-pass would
establish that all these hundreds of thousands of licensees have been
qualified for General (or Extra) all along. At that moment it is
established, ipso facto, that the current Technician examination is
sufficient for the 'new General' and that the last Advanced examination
is sufficient for the 'new Extra'.

I agree 100%. And that's not the only message. Such giveaways also say that
the tests are so difficult that existing hams cannot be reasonably expected to
pass them on their own - but new hams have to!

Up until now I have never raised the cry of "dumbing down", but such a
mass give-away would set a new lower bar for all future qualification
levels in the Amateur Radio service, and your position allegedly in
support of strenuous technical qualification standards rings hollow
indeed.

Remember what I was talking about some weeks back, Hans - and Carl asked me to
be quiet in case someone got the idea?

There's no good reason I can see to give existing Techs, Tech Pluses and
Advanceds a bye on the writtens for the next license class.

73 de Jim, N2EY

In article om, "Dee D.
Flint" writes:

Although new versus old does cause friction, the balance is still needed.
The new bring fresh enthusiasm and new ideas. The old have the experience
to weigh these ideas and modify them so they will work or to spot ideas that
have been tried in the past and known to fail. We need both old and new.

Well said, Dee!

There's also the need to recognize that newer is not always better, yet if
you never try anyhting different you may never get anything different.

"The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change
amid order." - Alfred North Whitehead

73 de Jim, N2EY

"N2EY" wrote in message
...
In article om, "Dee D.
Flint" writes:

Although new versus old does cause friction, the balance is still needed.
The new bring fresh enthusiasm and new ideas. The old have the
experience
to weigh these ideas and modify them so they will work or to spot ideas
that
have been tried in the past and known to fail. We need both old and new.

Well said, Dee!

There's also the need to recognize that newer is not always better, yet if
you never try anyhting different you may never get anything different.

"The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve
change
amid order." - Alfred North Whitehead

73 de Jim, N2EY

The quote says it even better though.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE