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#31
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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 - |
#32
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"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 |
#33
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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. |
#34
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"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 |
#35
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"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 |
#36
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"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 |
#37
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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. |
#38
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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 |
#39
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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 |
#40
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"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 |
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