On Feb 3, 12:43�am, "Michael J. Coslo" wrote:

A lot of Hams,
especially those who have been Hams for a long time, seem to
inadvertently downplay just what knowledge is needed to be an
effective communicator in wireless.

I don't think that's just a long-time-ham thing.

You see this in their comments
about some supposed ease in getting a license, among others.

I think there's a big difference between what it takes to get a USA
amateur license and what it takes to be an effective communicator, even
if we're just talking about Amateur Radio. The license tests are just
the beginning; there's a lot of practical stuff not on the license
tests.

I'm here
to tell you that the art and science of making
a communications link
between randomly "chosen" areas, and all the electronics that that
entails, is a matter that takes some serious education and/or
experience.

I think that depends on what resources are available and what the
actual conditions and communications needs are.

For example, with modern satellite communications, a news team can be
flown into a disaster area (such as Haiti) and get an on-the-spot
report out of the disaster area in short order. Getting communication
from specific people in the disaster area to others inside or outside
the disaster area is a completely different thing.

Some folks may not consider "health and welfare" messages to be of
vital importance, but when you have loved ones in the disaster area and
haven't heard from them in days, a simple "We're OK!" message
ispriceless.

Plus what is seen on TV isn't always an accurate picture. On another
forum I read about the devastation of Hurricane Ike being only just
behind Hurricane Katrina in dollars. But Katrina got far more media
play than Ike, over a much longer time. And the Katrina coverage
focused on New Orleans even though the Mississippi coastline was harder
hit. (This isn't a claim of bias or wrongdoing; reporters can't be
evenly distributed everywhere. But it is reason to take TV reports with
a grain of salt).

Yet time after time, the systems that we come up with just fail. And
the problem is always that the best laid plans to take the skilled
operator out of the link fail. The reason is pretty simple. The effort
to remove the decisions that an educated operator would make
add
infrastructure to the system. When the wheels com off, the
infrastructure fails. The same forces that destroy, flood, and
freeze
the victims of disaster also have an effect on the infrastructure
that is in place to rescue them.

As Commander Montgomery Scott used to say: "The more complicated you
make the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain". Or similar.

The problem is cost; the skilled operator costs more resources than the
equipment that replaces him/her. And as the availability (in the
technical sense) of the equipment improves, the apparent need for
operators goes down.

On the commercial radio operator demise part, I'd have
to say that you
want to listen in my area to hear the results. One company
owns all
the radio stations in my area, with the exception of the Public
station..

To diverge for a moment, that's another example of the government
taking a hands-off approach when formerly they had been active in
regulation.

It used to be that there were all kinds of limits on how many broadcast
stations the same corporate entity could own in a given market. The
idea was that no market should be dominated, let alone monopolized, by
a single network or company. This idea and the regulations to enforce
it were in place for decades, but a few years ago were quietly tossed
aside, resulting in what you have in your area.

The only one I bother to listen to other than the Public
station is the local ESPN sports station. They regularly go off the
air for long periods of time, play the satellite feed message, or my
favorite, play two feeds at once.

AM or FM?

The funny thing is that the most
listened to station in the area is guess who, the public station.

Not unusual - market forces at work... Here in Philly we have at least
two: WHYY and WXPN

They
still have engineers, they still monitor their output, and they
actually take input from their listeners.

That deregulation, that getting rid of skilled employees, did it work
when we have 8 or 9 stations that are horribly undependable,
and most
everyone, even people who hate to admit it, listen to the public
radio station?

Depends on how you define "did it work". From a pure profit standpoint,
all that matters is the return on investment. To the station's owners,
the additional cost of improving the availability of the signal and the
content of the programming may not result in enough of an increased
return (of cash).

But the public station measures "return on investment" differently.

I think Amateur Radio does, too.

73 de Jim, N2EY