Cmdr Buzz Corey wrote:
Steve Stone wrote:


*The hams also get little respect from telecommunications-equipment
companies, such as Motorola Inc. "Something is better than nothing,
that's right," says Jim Screeden, who runs all of Motorola's repair
teams in the field for its emergency-response business. "But ham
radios are pretty close to nothing." Mr. Screeden says ham radios can
take a long time to relay messages and work essentially as "party
lines," with multiple parties talking at once. Says Mr. Leggett at the
Monroe operations center: "We are the unwanted stepchild. But when the
s- hits the fan, who are you going to call?"*


I sent an emil to Motorola about Mr. Screeden's comments about ham
radio. Here is the respondse.


Motorola apologizes for the way Mr. Screeden's comments appeared in
Tuesday's Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately, Mr. Screeden was taken out
of context. (sure it was, it couldn't be any clearer of his thoughts
towards ham radio).

Hah! context indeed!

I sent off an email to them:

I read with great interest the story in the Wall Street Journal
regarding your employee Jim Screeden's attitude toward Amateur Radio and
our contribution to the relief and emergency efforts in the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina.
Quotes such as:
Something is better than nothing,that's right,But ham radios
are pretty close to nothing." are very, very disappointing, and I am
very sorry to see that Motorola holds such a low opinion of Amateurs and
their contribution. Other comments regarding the speed of amateur
communications are also seemingly uncalled for, and add to the
embarrassment of a public dressing down of the service.
I am sorry that Motorola holds Amateurs in such low esteem.

Michael J. Coslo KB3EIA

We'll see what their response is.

Motorola fully recognizes the incredible work that the amateur radio
operator community has put forth during the Hurricane Katrina response
efforts. In fact, Motorola has at least 100 of its own employees who are
amateur radio operators.We also understand the cooperation and
partnership that Motorola has developed with the amateur radio operator
community in introducing our Broadband Over Powerline solution.



We will continue to work to highlight the unique capabilities that
public safety communications and amateur radio operators both bring to
significant natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. Once again, as
demonstrated by the recently publicized cooperation with amateur radio
for the Powerline LV test at ARRL headquarters, Motorola values it's
relationship with amateur radio and respects the critical and unique
work they are doing to help with the Katrina recovery efforts. The
recent WSJ article was taken out of context in comparing the simple
amateur radio communication capabilities with the very complex Public
Safety and Enterprise solutions.

We appreciate the work you and the amateur radio operator community is
putting forth. You may not know that Hurricane Katrina has become the
largest single disaster recovery effort in our company's history too. We
also hope we'll be able to establish a level of understanding and keep
our focus on the folks that need it most ... those impacted by Hurricane
Katrina.



Sincerely,

Jeff Madsen

Director, Communications & Public Affairs

Motorola, Inc.

Government & Enterprise Mobility Solutions

Email:

Office: (847)-538-7660