Bill--and you'll be standing for election when?
Only when those who believe in <your cause here> become
directors will any change occur. If the only folks having
their hats in the ring are <some other cause here> types,
how can <your cause here> go further?
As Ward pointed out, the ham radio of my youth (early 1960s)
has all but disappeared. I like Morse Code and use it 98%
of my operating time, but know that inevitably it will
disappear as a licensing requirement (and even in the 60s
there were many people [mostly Techs limited to 50MHz and
higher] who were essentially anti-code). I like contests,
but that is cyclical for me (and not related to the sunspot
cycle); I don't expect everybody to like these aspects and I
respect their opinion. But I draw the line at IRLP,
Echolink and the other misceginated systems. To me they
aren't ham radio and I shall not participate. As long as
they permit me my CW and RTTY in the first 75~100kHz of the
HF bands, they can do what they want elsewhere. It's like
ordering a pizza on a 2-meter repeater phone patch, I guess.
I do question its legality (as well as that of the IP
systems, especially WinLink -- e-mail by ham radio? that's
as bad as the phone patches for missionaries) although
apparently some folks' interpretation of the rules differ
and so some repeaters allow it and others don't from what I
understand (I haven't been on a voice repeater in over a
dozen years).
Hopefully, ham radio will survive. Its form may be
unrecognizable to someone who fell asleep in 1970 and woke
up in 2010, but it will be ham radio (as long as some sort
of an examination is involved). Whether you know code or
not, whether you "Bashed" the exam or had to really
understand the material to pass, whether you needed zero, 5,
13, or 20 wpm to get your Extra, you ARE a ham. (And people
in the 1960's didn't have to draw schematics like those
licensed in the 1930's did -- and who remembers the brouhaha
over the Novice and Tech licenses in the early 1950's?)
Again you ARE a ham -- pure and simple. You are not
"differently abled" (in the words of George Carlin) simply
because your entry requirements differed from mine.
73,
Bob AA0CY
-----Original Message-----
From: cq-contest-bounces@contesting.com
[mailto:cq-contest-bounces@contesting.com]On Behalf Of Bill
Turner
Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2006 10:41 PM
To: Ward Silver; CQ-Contest Reflector
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Somewhere in the Future
ORIGINAL MESSAGE:
At 02:49 PM 1/26/2006, Ward Silver wrote:
>Those of us that care about the survival of the ham radio
principles we find
>near and dear should be thinking about how to convince
future hams that
>those principles are, in fact, worth keeping as part of ham
radio. It's
>about salesmanship and education.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That is certainly a good part of it, but we also need to
focus on
electing directors who mirror our views. A lot of them
don't, apparently.
73, Bill W6WRT
_______________________________________________
CQ-Contest mailing list
CQ-Contest@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
_______________________________________________
CQ-Contest mailing list
CQ-Contest@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
|