Jayson:

On a few points you are right on. However, try to net a high speed
data link on 2.4 GHZ to hawaii, australia, the uk--fat chance!!! (and
you might as well forget 220 MHz too--50MHz with ducting, well, maybe)

This is what HF is for, old farts got confused and though it was for
brass keys and brass balls!

John

"Jayson Davis" wrote in message
...
John Smith wrote:

Dee:

If you would chart developments and advancements in every
technical
field--amateur radio would come in last; frankly, I would doubt ones
mental abilities who would even move in the direction of challenging
that statement.


Exactly right on point. Not since the 1950's has amateur radio had
much of an impact on the "radio art". Packet briefly did, but it
was rapidly eclipsed by technology.



A religious devotion to cw and a real "good old boys club" has
damaged amateur radio for decades. Personalities which have an
"anti-social bent" have been in control here far too long, calling
them just "eccentric" is far too kind.


Not CW, but a general eccentric flavor has damaged amateur radio.
Since the 1960's amateur radio has attracted the social misfits who
fit in by the virtue of having a license and their social ineptitude
excused because of the license.

Nothing wrong with a "good old boys club", it's just that it's moved
from a technical organization to a beer and belching organization
with no real roots in advancement of the art. Sitting around and
talking about scratching your testicals on 75 meter SSB has ZERO
attraction to people with half a brain, and THIS is the problem with
amateur radio. It isn't CW, it isn't lack of social skills or good
hygiene, it's just that it doesn't attract engineers and good
electronics technicians because it simply isn't challenging enough.



Let us hope that decades of damage which has been done can be
repaired quickly by the young men I am wishing and hoping to be here
with us.


Ain't gonna happen, I'm afraid. The bright young men are shooting
2.4 gig WiFi at each other and bypassing amateur radio entirely.
It's too late.


Now we need to encourage bright young men from industry here, so
that
we may mass produce cheap equipment and make amateur radio easy to
step into. Hopefully, china and other developing countries will
find it profitable and worth doing, to mass produce amateur
equipment in a flowing abundance. Hopefully, soon, in the future
the bands will be so congested calls are made for the bands to be
expanded to accommodate all the hams needing bandwidth. A boom like
that which CB experienced in the 70's would be most desirable,
however, I do realize this is probably too much to even hope for.



All you're going to get are people from CB. The bright young
engineers are not going to touch amateur radio because there isn't
anything here to attract them.


As soon as cw falls, I see the most important step being in
"advertising" the fact that cw is no longer a requirement.
Spreading the word and helping others to study and pass the written
exam will be key in getting the numbers we need at that time.



It's not an issue of numbers, it's an issue of why would anyone want
to become an amateur radio operator. Really now, why would you want
to do that? To talk on repeaters? To work some guy on 20 meters?
The whole hobby is passe.

If you want to attract the bright intelligent minds, you better be
prepared to challenge them. Challenge them to let them in,
challenge them when they get here. Do you think ax.25 is going to
attract people?

HA!