From: "K4YZ" on Thurs 8 Sep 2005 23:39


Mac wrote:
Great work and excellent publicity...cya Mac

"Charlie" wrote in message
...
1. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9228945/

--

Charlie - AD5TH
www.ad5th.com

I've noted that the usual rhetoric from the "Ham Radio Will Never
Get Through When Anything Fails" crowd, specifically from the patriarch
of the Feeble Five, Lennie "No Guts" Anderson, has waned in the face of
MAJOR media stories in all facets of "the press" that have lauded
Amateur Radio.

"Patriarch?!?" :-) Not I, never having met in-person any of
those against the mighty warrior of "seven hostile actions,"
Dudly the Unconquerable...aka Dudly the Unhumbleable. :-)

"Waned?!?" :-) Life goes on 2000 miles away from the Katrina
hurricane devastation.

Ahem...the "MAJOR media" are reporting as much as possible about
the Gulf Coast damage. That is of considerable quantity.

Reporters, journalists, telecasters are all on-the-scene covering
an enormous area of extensive damage with many, many "human
interest" stories appearing. Anybody with a working TV set can
see/hear that; anybody with a working BC receiver can hear that.
Anyone able to read a major newspaper can read that. Anyone with
a working PC and an Internet connection can find that out.

What Dudly is doing in here is just ordinary FLAMING because he
is obsessed with FIGHTING. [wannabe-warriors get that way...]
Yes, stories have been filed with newsservices on amateur radio
doing their part in aiding the relief effort, but are those
relief actions of amateurs of any notable effect on society as
a whole? Health and welfare messages have not been shown to "save
lives" on any large scale...a large scale such as a MILLION
displaced and homeless citizens in the Gulf states affected by
Katrina. Perhaps nearer to two MILLION people displace, homeless,
or dead when the tallies on human lives is more complete. The
scale of damage is too vast, too shattering to millions more.

Thousands and thousands of volunteers and paid workers are very
busy at the moment, doing many things of DIRECT AID to the
homeless and displaced, all WITHOUT any direct "need" to do radio
communications about "health and welfare messages." That's
important work. MOST (very nearly all) of that work can be done
WITHOUT a lot of radio communications. Coordination of effort
does require communications of some kind, but the "coordination"
of ALL agencies, paid and volunteer, were simply NOT prepared to
deal with the magnitude of damage and destruction that happened.
That includes amateur radio, folks, whether it smarts your little
egos or not. Did anyone really think that a few dozen hams
could really make a "difference" by sending health and welfare
messages from millions to other millions? No doubt the self-
proclaimed amateur patriots far from the disaster scene were
happy as larks to see the tiniest factoid of their Great Help
to the victims of hurricane Katrina. They have waved their
banners, cheered as loudly (and abusively) as possible, pinned
invisible medals of valor to their equally invisible uniforms
of service they wear in the newsgroups.

But, things eventually get sorted out and the REAL coordinators
can organize things, start to do the REAL rescue work such as
pumping out all those millions of acre-feet of flood water,
finding shelter and food and sanitation for a million or more
displaced and homeless people, trying to restore a large city
and many smaller cities along the Gulf. The REAL health workers
have been on the scene, pulling out bodies of the dead, measuring
the countryside for disease, taking steps to control insect-borne
diseases, preparing for the epidemics that might ravage the
survivors. REAL work, down on the nitty-gritty level, done by
those who KNOW what they are doing even though they are over-
whelmed by the enormity of the task.

Even the snide remarks of some lame slime from Motorola has been
laid waste.

"Lame slime?" :-) While some consider Public Relations folks
in that category, that's just inflamatory, ignorant rhetoric
from a nurse who has no provable record of past "experience" in
either radio communications or the electronics industry...a
wannabe-warrior who can only "fight" by cursing others who don't
agree with him. Disreputable activity.

Such inflammatory curse words are only in the minds of a few who
have NO REAL CONCEPT of the many and various communications systems
used by the "infrastructure." Motorola has been one of the leaders
in radio since World War 2...surviving when Hallicrafters and Zenith
and a number of other electronics industry biggies of the Chicago
area FAILED, dissolved, went bankrupt, became DEFUNCT.

The electronics industry of the United States IS HELPING, just as
it did after the NYC disaster of 11 Sep 01, shipping in professional
radio-electronics equipment from handhelds to "WiFi" and "WiMax"
whole systems to restore the BIG communications needs along the
Gulf coast. The evidence IS there in the "MAJOR news", in the
newspaper business section, in the press releases of major
electronics industry corporations. It isn't carried on the amateur
"news" from the ARRL...such is counter-productive to promoting the
ARRL and furthering the amateur mystique that some need to
justify their imaginary glory of having an amateur radio hobby.

The disaster of hurricane Katrina is of unparalleled proportions
and ALL humane-thinking citizens can do their part, however big,
however small. There is NO AID given to anyone or anything by
continuing an unrelenting stream of personal insults towards
others they know nothing of nor nothing about.