Although several years ago, Riley's comments are worth a look:

"This Amateur Radio service is serious business."

Not once in the speech is the word "hobby" used.


"...I know that when a natural disaster hits, they're [cell towers]
the first ones to go down. And the few that are remaining are jammed
and you can't get access. The people who are going to be taking care
of the real communications are sitting right here in this room. It's
the Amateur Radio service. And in the first few days, or the first few
hours of these multi-jurisdictional incidents, it's the amateurs who
keep things going."

"There was a big newspaper chain that had a reporter with headphones on
listening to the hurricane emergency net. That made us nervous. The
last thing we wanted was some bad publicity for the Amateur Radio
service anywhere."

"Our people that go to these ITU meetings will tell us that it's
often a personal embarassment to them when these countries play back
tapes of what they hear on 75 and 20 Meters in the American amateur
bands."

On the American 'phone subbands. Not CW/data subbands...

"It puts them in a very difficult position when they have to defend
examples of conduct that other countries hear."

Should be "'nuff said".....

73 de Jim, N2EY