[RFI] Today's Wall Stree Journal front page article on hams & BPL

[Hare,Ed, W1RFI]

The reporter personally saw S9+ noise levels on the mobile transceiver.  He personally saw that receiver hearing signals from all over the world as we drove to the test area.  He saw that recevier receive interference for a half mile past the BPL test area and he heard that interference on MHz after MHz.

After all that, he talked about how amateur radio "claims" there is interference instead of portraying it as fact.

Still, overall, I think it was important to get the interfernce aspects of BPL into national attention. It did get top billing in the article.

73,
Ed Hare, W1RFI



-----Original Message-----
From: rfi-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:rfi-bounces at contesting.com]On
Behalf Of Bill Turner
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2004 10:17 AM
To: dj2001 at mn.rr.com
Cc: RFI at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [RFI] Today's Wall Stree Journal front page article on hams
& BPL


On Tue, 23 Mar 2004 18:01:17 -0600, dj2001 at mn.rr.com wrote:

>Not a very helpful article.  Someone with good writing skills should 
>reply to the WSJ and let the writer and their boss (The Editor) know 
>that Amateur Radio is not just a "hobby", rather a public service and 
>that we ARE on the cutting edge of technology, not just a bunch of 
>old guys that built "crystal sets" in their youth.

_________________________________________________________

Like the blind men and the elephant, we all have our different
perceptions, but I thought the article was quite fair and correct.  For
nearly all hams, it is indeed a hobby.  Those who do perform a true
"public service" are so rare they get written up in QST.  Most of us
either chase DX, contest or ragchew, none of which is a "public
service".

When you say "we ARE on the cutting edge of technology" I think of an
appliance operator with the latest from Kenwood, ICOM or Yaesu.  To me,
the most exotic thing hams do now is probably EME, and even that is
decades old.  Years ago I built my own gear, including a complete 40
meter transceiver which was my own design from the ground up, but those
days are gone.

Don't get me wrong; I love my hobby, but I would be embarrassed to tell
someone I was "cutting edge".  What part of ham radio were you thinking
of?

--
Bill, W6WRT
QSLs via LoTW

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