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#11
September 4th 04, 03:41 AM
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In article , Leo
writes: On 03 Sep 2004 05:40:43 GMT, (Len Over 21) wrote: In article , Leo writes: On 02 Sep 2004 04:18:56 GMT, (Len Over 21) wrote: In article , Leo writes: On 01 Sep 2004 20:09:31 GMT, (Len Over 21) wrote: snip The Notice is available at: http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/inter.../sf06456e.html Thank you for the link! Any Canadian radio amateurs care to comment on that? I'm not Canadian, but I think it fails to follw the KISS principle. They want to add an Intermediate licence to their Basic and Advanced. Why don't they just abolish the 'Plus' categories (i.e. plus Morse)? That would be much simpler. I'm not Canadian either as a "Carbo-American," but I think the "plus" category is a sop to the existing Canadian mighty morsemen. Canada must have its share of olde-fahrt hamme morsemen and those must be "satisfied." I am  - and fully agree with your observation that there are -um-a fair number of 'old school' amateurs up here, who do not believe in the abolishment of the Code Test (approximately a third of the respondents to the RAC survey on this subject). The RAC proposal attempts to meet the needs of both the "Pro Morse" and "No Morse" factions of the hobby - in quite an interesting way. Both sides win - either path leads to a full HF-access Amateur license. Now dat's a typically Canadian solution, eh? I'm not familiar with that sort of "typicalness." Been in here in this ultra-conservative retro-tech newsgroup too much. :-) Hmmm - not good for a guy like you, living in one of the more free thinking areas of the country.... Oh, there's plenty of independent thinking going on here, trying to look at all sides to see which one seems best. That I learned from design work...and trying to do a good job. (an aside ... I have relatives in Redondo Beach - spent a few happy summers there when I was a teenager learning Californian philosophy.... and a fair bit of anatomy too, on the beach....wow! Southern California was the birthplace of the space shuttle and the Bikini...not to mention lots of good airplanes along the way. The beach cities down here (Redondo, Hermosa, etc., etc.) DO have some very nice views of the, er, ocean... :-) What........ocean? ...while driving along the Pacific Coast Highway. Safety first, fun and games afterwards. :-) I would say instead it is a GOOD COMPROMISE and to the credit of the Radio Amateurs of Canada and Industry Canada. I believe that the proposal is a good one - inasmuch as it provides access to HF without the requirement of Morse testing. It does recommend that Morse testing be made available should the applicant desire it - I have no problem with that. Status quo - or not. Your choice. That's fair and equitable in my viewpoint. Mighty macho morsemen will disagree and ignite (again) Flame Wars instead of simple bonfires. That would be typical......unfortunately. Realistically, this hobby has more than enough breadth to accomodate the needs of both the Morse and No Morse proponents. That should be true but for the outraged ultra-conservatives. Too many of that group are anal-retentive in trying to keep the status quo. It recommends raising the pass marks on the exams - good idea, most believe that they are way too low right now (60% is a pass on both the Basic and Advanced tests currently). No issue there. That's good in my view. Mine too. The more knowledge, the better. Can't have enough knowledge. That's for sure! It is indeed a compromise intended to satisfy both the Morse and No Morse factions of the hobby - but it does so with considerably more elegance than the ARRL proposal, in my opinion. ARRL is not fully into this new millennium. :-) Some wonder if they ever made it into the last millennium... In some ways, only the first quarter of it..... Frankly, they seem too concerned with playing politics than guiding the hobby into the future. I see it as internal politics, trying to preserve what they have and who has it. The league DOES do some good work. The anti-BPL work is very good. BPL is a threat to ALL who use HF and should transcend any politics. True, and they have done a great job of publicizing the threat to HF and beyond that BPL poses. Not to the electronic industry although one editorial in Electronic Design News made a mention of their website. There hasn't been a lot of comment on BPL in the industry press. One reason may be that BPL doesn't offer that much in the way of possible new products to be designed and made...in comparison to any of the many wireless schemes which have gotten the PR. The through-the-AC-line schemes have shown up as NOT having acceptance in the market...quite possibly for the fact that so few actually work as advertised. What remains is the venerable X10 system and a couple copycats plus the new Black & Decker line for remote controlling, all operating at much lower bandwidth. For much of the rest of it, I see it as the league trying to survive. They have failed to gain as much as a quarter of all licensed U.S. amateurs as members over the last decade-plus. ARRL has filed U.S. federal income tax showing that they are a $12 million (in 2002) business. "Tax-exempt" status, yes, but a business nonetheless. Membership dues aren't enough to keep the buildings warmed, staff paid, electricity for the equipment bought. Their major monetary source is QST ad sales (to keep QST afloat) and PUBLISHING. If they lose that publishing arm they can kiss their much-heralded free services for members goo-bye. Many in Newington would be looking for new work. The RAC proposal to IC was based on an Internet survey which was open to all licensed Canadian amateurs (not just RAC members). The ARRL proposal seems to have been developed autonomously by the Directors, with little (if any) input from the Amateur community. No wonder everyone was surprised when it was filed! That's the thing...the entrenched "we know what's best for you (members) and everyone else" attitude. Many don't agree with that and haven't joined even if they can afford the small annual dues. The league got away with that for decades before the Internet went public in 1991. They did all the interfacing with the FCC, most of the lobbying, then promoted themselves as the Big Brother of all U.S. hams. They managed to convince a hard core of Believers who are outraged and ready to fight anyone who says the least little negative thing about the league. [witness some of its Believers in here] I have! I hope you meant that as "witnessing" not as a Believer...? I'm in favour of it - and my comments to that effect have been filed with IC, as of today. Good on you! I have to agree with Hans Brakob in that our northern neighbor in Norse America is doing the right thing for their future. Modernization is long overdue. [excuse me...NORTH America...;-) ] heh.....that brought back memories of Leif The Lucky from grade school! Norsemen were the first European discoverers of North America. Yup - long before Columbus got lost and thought this was India! He should have bought that Garwin GPS handheld when he had the chance... :-) .....or stopped using his sextant as a telescope Settled in what is now Canada (New Foundland) for a while. Dunno why they left...maybe they objected to speaking French? ...they probably left because they couldn't find jobs (the unemployment rate in Newfie is a whopping 20% or so - WAY above the national average of just over 7%!) A definite NOT GOOD situation there. My sympathies with the workers not working. Mine too. Been there a few times myself (isn't Telecom grand!) - nothing worse than no job when you want to work! Been there, done that, courtesy of the "job security" in aerospace. Fortunately, there were lots of aerospace companies in southern California. Haven't been in many "employment insurance" lines, but once is enough. Industry Canada has much simpler regulations for their radio amateurs but accomplish the same thing in the hobby. Well said. The less regulations, the better the hobby! .....and the less I gotta remember.... Band limits and other technical necessities should be enough. Fully agreed. Up here, bandplans for the various operating modes are compiled by the RAC, and adhered to by gentlemen's agreement. It is absolutely legal to operate SSB on 7.100 MHz, or CW on 7.250 MHz, but it just isn't done! Peer pressure is the only enforcement tool required. There's a slightly different peer pressure active down here. :-) Has much to do with personality conflicts and self-righteousness, much less about actual radio technology. Yeah, I see that alright! ARRL is 90 years old and they have not had much turnover at Hq. That leads to "cronyism" in Hq and a resultant status-quo thinking which has contributed to their lack of getting new membership. St. Hiram hisself remained president since day one until he got too old to show up at the office. Dave Sumner is "executive president" and isn't votable out of office. While there is a BoD at the ARRL, the publications arm takes its direction direct from Hq staff. That leads to a concentration of who-runs-what to the Newington group despite all the self-promotion of "democratic principle" BoD "discussions." That publishing arm is a mighty strong venue for getting readers to think the way the Hq advisers say they should. Not that many publications left for radio amateurs down here. What many of the league disciples fail to realize is that whatever gets published out of Newington is the decision of the editors, not some etheral "will of the ham community." Hq staff have the very final say-so on anything in print...and print with real ink on real paper doesn't disappear or get revised easily. That is Real Opinion Making Power! BTW, that electronic test that can run on any PC looked rather neat! Simple way to do it and the computer does most of the paperwork as well as keeping a record of it being done and when. It is pretty neat indeed! Free, too! Rack up some points for the RAC and IC. They deserve applause. Normally, one should be wary of free things from the Government.... Now, now... :-) Learning skills of long ago just to get a license in here and now is nowhere close to being progressive and just doesn't keep up with the times. Again, fully agreed. Especially since the rest of the world is moving towards the future - we would look pretty silly clinging steadfastly to the past. In amateur radio technology, the "outsiders," the designers and manufacturers (mostly off-shore to North America) are the ones doing it. Names like Icom, Yaesu, Kenwood, Panasonic (Matsu****a), JRC, etc., etc. etc...in HF, VHF, UHF, and now beginning to get into the microwave region. I chanced upon a 5.8 GHz cordless phone at Fry's Electronics (the huge consumer electronics supermarket chain of about a dozen in this corner of the U.S.). That's pushing into C band, something impossible to have on the consumer market with vacuum tubes. Full digital two-way, low-power radio with all the extra features of the L band cordless units. Affordable stuff. There are so many cellular telephone subscribers down here that our Census Bureau reports that one in three citizens has one. A little, almost minuature, two way radio working at the bottom of the microwave region! Newer models complete with little cameras and keyboards built in. Those extras may be fluff to many but they've all been crammed into that little tiny package. Not to mention that many of those units integrate several radically different cellular protocols seamlessly in that package - mine is AMPS 800 MHz analog, D-AMPS (TDMA) 800 MHz digital, and CDMA 1.9 GHz digital. All in a package that fits in your palm, and runs for a week on its dinky Li-ion battery. And free, with a three-year cell company contract! Unbelievable technology, compared to just a few years ago. Absolutely phenomenal compared to 20 years ago. Agreed. But... Several of the Believers in here will cuss at cell phones because they aren't "real" radios one puts on a nice desk in the "shack" in prominent view. Those same Believers will trashmouth VHF and above the same way...HTs are called "the shack on the belt." :-) Digital devices, in particular the family called microcontrollers, made all of that possible in such small size. I doubt there is any "good" transceiver for HF designed and made in the last decade that doesn't have a microcontroller as the basic control and display handler, the one that makes 10 Hz increment accurate tuning possible by making the internal DDS control words. I'm still incredulous at the amazing leaps forward in technology since I first began working (way back when tubes were king). Getting equipment to work reliably at high UHF was an accomplishment worthy of much praise and doing the same in the microwave region was almost a miracle. Now its become an accomplished fact. Way back when of the 50s, only the well-heeled hams could afford the near-precisely tuneable Collins rigs with their "PTOs" that could find their way to better than the nearest Kilocycle, receive or transmit. All others were stuck with approximations using squint-read dials and "bandspread" tuning set with the aid of a 100 KHz crystal "calibrator." Now anyone can get a direct digital readout down to 10 Hz of the correct frequency. No sweaty-dah. Absolutely - my car radio has far better frequency stability than most of the test equipment that I operated back in the 70s. No one seems to think of the temperature extremes that an auto or other vehicle goes through. :-) The Phase Locked Loop made it possible and digital devices makes the PLL practical. The first PLL was done in France in 1932. It wasn't until the mid 1960s that they started appearing in radio communications equipment...starting in low microwave oscillator units using samplers to get the uWv into the loop. That same PLL principle made the HP Vector Voltmeter possible and the big line of self-calibrateable test systems that demand accurate tuning returns to perform computer-controlled testing and self-calibration. Frequency counters are digital instruments. Those have shrunk to ridiculously small sizes in marrying a microcontroller to an LCD display backlit by LEDs, using a maximum of four ICs. AADE has a fine line of those little guys, well worth it to revitalize an old mechanical dial read-out rig. It used to be that tuning up a tube transmitter actually took some finesse and a little experience to do. Now the transistor PAs don't need it and have automatic protection in case the VSWR gets too high. Need to match to a "funny" antenna? No sweat, there's several automatic-tuning tuners on the market, takes the worry out of getting as much as possible into the antenna and out to the world. Push-button ease. I still use my old Heathkit SB-400 SSB tube transmitter on the air - with the antenna tuner, it's a handful to tune up, compared to the newer rigs. But, if I actually manage to raise someone with it, it's a minor miracle, and I feel much more a part of the process than if I simply turned the tuning knob on a more modern unit. Plus, I bought it DOA and completely overhauled it back to life - as a result, I'm very familiar with the inner workings of the thing. My own personal contribution to the past, I suppose.....that, or I'm too cheap to buy a new rig - or both There's nostalgia and then there's nostalgia. :-) A long time ago I did those "tune-ups" the old fashioned way for a couple years. Bloody nuisance when there's three dozen big transmitters under your care and NONE of the is taken down out of circuit unless some high rank says so. :-) I can't see why anyone wants to trashmouth automatic antenna tuners which would reduce the amount of knob-twisting to a minimum. Solid-state PAs of today don't need any special knob-twisting...and they have built-in coupler sensing to tell the user if the VSWR is getting dangerous to the final. 73, Leo PS - WTF is a "Carbo-American"? - never heard that one before! Came from a couple of comic strips running in the L.A. Times as well as elsewhere. Backlash to the "Adkins Diet" craze. :-) [or "Atkins Diet" or whatever..."zero carbohydrates"] Got it - we have been bombarded by the "Adkins" diet craze up here too. It's nothing that a Big Mac and a couple of beers won't fix I'm a supporter of Krispy Kreme myself. :-) Yup, we have them here too - good stuff! Too good, in fact.... heh heh heh...I'm waiting for one of my "fan club" to make more trashmouth about that... :-) Heh. This reminds me of the story of Micro Henry, who took Millie Amp for a ride on his Mega Cycle - ah, the good old college days..... Old story, really, I think it goes back as far as WW2 days. I managed to locate this classic work of electrical prose at the following site: CAUTION: Not for the faint of heart or pathologically moralistic reader ......you know who you are Title: "The Sex Life Of An Electron" http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStre...do/goodies.htm "The Physicists Party" isn't too bad either What will the "children" think of that? :-) |
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