RadioBanter - View Single Post

October 29th 03, 12:18 AM

snipped all over the place!

On 28 Oct 2003 14:43:15 -0800, (N2EY) wrote:

Wish there was a similar series for VE-land...

It would indeed be interesting to see the similarities, as well as
observe where the administrations went their own seperate ways...

I have just about finished the 'Wayback Machine' articles - what a
strange regulatory path the US ARS has taken over the years! More
politics than the average Tom Clancy novel....

(extra bonus question: what is the significance of that callsign?)

Found this reference on Google:

Feb. 1, 1939. Broadcasting reports General Electric engineers recently
set up two experimental frequency modulation transmitters at Albany
and Schenectady, operating on the same frequency. They drove a test
car between the two cities and found almost no areas of interference
between the stations. The stations were W2XDA Schenectady and W2XOY
New Scotland

hey, this guy's GOOD!

Nah - just using my Ph.G (Doctor of Googlology)

Years ago I suggested here that one way out of the code test argument
would be to create a new "Homebrew" class of license. No code test,
Extra class written, all privs. Just one special requirement -
amateurs with that license class could only use equipment they'd built
themselves (except in a genuine emergency). No kits, either.

You can imagine how that idea went over.

Unfortunately, I can......it's a familiar story here!

Certainly wasn't connecting 'old' with 'bad', Jim - just an
observation that as times change, priorities tend to shift as well.

All progress requires change but all change is not progress. Newer is
not always better.

Yup - remember the Beta VCR?

Some folks hold up "change" as some sort of mantra, saying that we
should all accept change without resistance or question. I don't buy
it.

Depends on the reasons for change, I guess. Sometimes, the benefits
are not always that easy to see, at the onset, anyway!

It's a unique hobby - one where the skills learned and practised
within it can be taken out into the community in times of need, to
augment the 'professional' emergency services.

The emergency and public service aspects take it beyond being purely a
"hobby".

That's where I was going with my comment above - they actually take it
right out of the hobby, and into mainstream emergency comms!

How often are calculators wrong?

Fairly frequently - and always dur to input error! My kids have
illustrated this point often - I ask my 11-year-old "how do you figure
that 700 divided by 10 is 7?, and I get "that's what the calculator
said!". So, we get a piece of paper, and do the calculation longhand
- and the correct answer becomes obvious pretty quickly.

Point is, if you don't know how to do math the manual way, you don't
know how to do math!

CW, in this analogy, is a different animal - more like comparing an
abacus to a calculator.

I disagree!

Well, long division is, by definition, the more rigourous manual way
of using a calculator to solve the identical problem. Really, they
are the same - or very closely related, anyway.

Morse communication is an entity all its own - with its own 'rule set'
(the code), and its own 'tools' (the key). You could say that Morse
could be sent today using a computer, and the long method would be by
hand and by ear - that would be a similar relationship to the division
analogy.

But to work the analogy around such that SSB (or any other mode, for
that matter) is the easy way, while Morse is the longer way - that's a
bit of a stretch, I 'd suggest. They're too different to link like
that!

Morse is like doing manual arithmetic. Direct interaction with the
signal, just as manual math is direct interaction with the numbers.

No difference.

That statement is true, but only when comparing apples to apples.
Morse by key or bug and ear would be the manual, direct interaction
method compared only to using a PC to do it automatically.

Your whole argument rests on *not* allowing Morse to be analogous to
manual arithmetic calculation...yet it is.

As above, it is - if applied in the right context.

In skilled hands, an abacus can give you the
same answer as a calculator (faster, too - watched a guy do it once!)
- but it is outmoded, in a world where calculators are cheap and
common.....one would be hard pressed to devise a compelling arguement
for teaching the abacus nowadays!

The abacus never achieved any great acceptance in western culture.
Morse did! And Morse is still widely used by hams.

Agreed, And it will undoubtedly continue to be used, if only because
of its superioity under certain circumstances. I use it myself - not
nearly as proficiently as many, but I'm workin' on it....

But the question isn't whether it is a useful mode or not, or whether
it should continue or not - it should, and it will. It's whether it
is important enough to stand as a seperate test item for qualification
and privileges within the modern ARS.

There was a time that it should - but I remain convinced that time has
passed. By discontinuing Morse, there is no longer an impact on
public safety, or on emergency services, or on other users of the
spectrum - they all abandoned the mode some time ago. Its only
remaining practical use is for hobby purposes within the ARS.

And, don't forget the rest of the world - they are dropping the
requirement as fast as they can. Has anyone heard of a single
administration that has stated that they intend to continue to retain
their mandatory code testing? I haven't!

73 de Jim, N2EY

73, Leo