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September 19th 05, 05:27 AM

wrote:
From: "Alun L. Palmer" on Sun 18 Sep 2005 07:19

" wrote in

From: Alun L. Palmer on Sep 17, 8:07 am

The only point where I differ is that I'm personally convinced that
abolition of the Morse test would have been carried in the ITU in 1993 if
it could only have got to the floor. Those who delayed it did so precisely
because they knew that.

That's a typical tactic, found at any large conclave/conference.

The ITU is one country one vote, so the US is no
more influential there than Monaco or Luxembourg.

Only when it comes to the VOTE ITSELF. It's fairly obvious that
the larger-population countries have larger delegates (and the
'guests' who are not supposed to have any voting power). With
more people in a delegation, the more people there are to meet
with other delegations away from the assembly and do one-on-one
salesmanship for "their side."

Then you have the many months prior to a WRC where the delegates
have been largely identified on the ITU listings (plus their
hotels/lodgings per delegation identified) so that "salesmanship"
can be applied.

The major "salesmanship" effort is on OTHER radio matters, of
course, and - contrary to specific-interest-on-ham-radio groups -
is of a greater international importance in radio regulations.

The IARU as a collective body is larger than the ARRL and their
opinion-influence on the voting delegates is stronger than the
ARRL's influence.

The ARRL began the IARU and the IARU permanent headquarters is at
Newington. Most IARU member societies are very, very small. They don't
have many members and they don't have much money. The IARU HQ
frequently donates money so that third world delegates may attend.
In the past, one of these was Cassandra Davies 9L1YL, President of SLARS
(Sierra Leone Amateur Radio Society), also a licensing official at SLET,
the Sierra Leonian PTT. Many SLARS members were non-Sierra Leonian.
Average meeting attendance was between fifteen to twenty radio amateurs.

In Botswana, no natives of Botswana were BARS members. There were no
indigenous radio amateurs in Botswana despite yearly BARS classes in
theory, regs and morse. Most licensees were German, British, Indian,
South African or American resident citizens.

Guinea-Bissau had no resident radio amateurs much of the time. During
my two years in Bissau, there was a Swedish op, Bengt Lundgren J52BLU in
country for about four months. There was a DXpedition to the Bijagos
Islands by an Italian group which lasted a matter of days. For the
balance of my tour, I was the only licensed radio amateur in the country.

When the IARU came out against amateur radio
licensing code testing a year prior to WRC-03, that sent a
"message" (in effect) to other administrations' delegates, a
"set-up" for the future voting. The IARU had not yet been of a
consensus on S25 modernization the decade before WRC-03.

It wasn't much of a message for most African countries delegates.

One problem of American radio amateurs is that they do NOT, as
a general rule, look any further than American ham radio
magazines for "news."

You state that as a fact. It can only be an assumption on your part.
The internet has made it very easy for radio amateurs to find other
sources for news.

While the ITU has a number of easily-
downloadable files on regulatory information, most of it is
available only to "members" on a subscription basis (members
would be "recognized" administration delegations or delegates).

So, Joe Average Ham wouldn't be likely to subscribe in order to obtain
the material.

They don't much bother with the FCC freely-available information
even though the FCC is their government's radio regulatory
agency.

There's another assumption on your part.

News that does get down to the individual-licensee
level is thus rather "filtered" by intermediate parties.

Filtered how, Len? Do you mean that only information of interest to
radio amateurs is published, as a rule, in amateur radio magazines? Why
would it be otherwise?

That
makes it very easy for them to NOT spend time looking for news
elsewhere and they get to play with their radios longer. :-)

Do commercial ops and governmental ops have the same problem? Do they
waste time and isn't it easy for them to cut down on the time they have
to play with their radios? :-)

It's also a ripe area for any group to do influence-control on
many without them realizing what is happening.

I had a feeling that we'd get down to your intimating that there's some
conspiracy to keep radio amateurs in the dark.

Dave K8MN

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