In article , "Jim Hampton"
writes:

I didn't want to mention the cause of my complaint of cut and paste. One of
our college graduates at work told me (why would he lie about this?) he did
his thesis using cut and paste from other papers on the internet. Perhaps
you missed the point; at some point in time, someone has to put the
*original* information into the computer and on the internet. This seems to
be the point you missed. Sure, I did 90 on a 100 wpm teletype. Perhaps you
mistakenly assume that I can't do 30 on a keyboard? (Har har-de-har!). Cut
and paste is most certainly *very* useful. I just don't see using cut and
paste to pass someone else's work off as your own.

I regularly do "cut and paste" from the Internet as part of my writing.
The difference between me and the common PLAGIARIST is that
I give credit for the source in my writing. It's a helluvalot easier than
having to travel 10 miles to any of three technical libraries which
might not have what references I'm looking for.

I'm a firm believer in Title 17 and its Public Law 94-553 and later
amendments. [copyrights] Avoids plagiarism lawsuits and stuff.

As far as testing, I have a concern that a lot of folks don't want any
testing. Sure, enjoy it when someone has a shoot-out on 11 meters (or 10)
running 10,000 or 20,000 watts next door to you.

I lived and worked 7 months *IN* an antenna field covering about 2 miles
by 1 mile (had been a small airfield) with up to 43 transmitters feeding
the antennas between 1 and 40 KW RF each. Makes listening to SW
or MF AM BC during free time a tad difficult...:-)

The electric power generation (self-contained on station) could handle
600 KWe and I figure about 200 KW of RF was being tossed in many
directions. Our barrack was at one corner of the field, transmitters in
the middle.

I once went out with a lady who had an apartment just two blocks from
KMPC, an MF AM BC station. KMPC regularly operated with 50 KW
RF output, maximum legal output for Mass Media services on MF BC.

I've never seen any substantive proof of any CBer running 10 gallons
or more. [fish story that]

Perhaps I misunderstand
your last statement "it's better that amateurs learn a bit more technology
than Ohm's law".

I was referring to "what is behind the front panel" of a radio, the general
principles of receivers, transmitters, frequency control, and the how and
why of matching to an antenna. Basic stuff of REAL communications,
especially for test/calibration/finding-out-if-it-works-maybe-bad-to-send-
back-to-the-factory-for-fixing.

I've gotten very tired long ago of so many amateurs claiming greatness
in radio and then showing they hadn't any knowledge of what went on
behind the front panel. They can spout off hours of memorized sales
phrases and quotes from Yaecomwood ads as if they knew what it
meant but all they demonstrated was mnemonic skills. :-)

In the late 1970s I decided to upgrade my communications receiver
thing and was looking around the HRO then in Van Nuys CA. I asked
(serially) three clerks in the HRO if they knew anything about how the
Icom R-70 could have a PLL using 1 KHz reference yet still have 10
Hz tuning increments. None of them knew what I was talking about.
I called Icom America from work and managed an instruction manual
copy, got it in the mail; Yaesu and Kenwood offices didn't return my
call. I bought the R-70 from HRO, showed the store folks (all hams)
what and how Icom did it (cleverly, I thought) and just got incredulous
looks. I'm not sure they could understand block diagrams, let alone
schematics.

The lab I may be moving into has an interesting power
supply ... 30,000 volts at 20 ma.

In 1960 I had the task of building a replica of a 15 KV, 50 mA supply
for an STL Physics Research lab project. [750 W equivalent] Corona
I didn't believe! :-) Used up three small bottles of GC corona dope.

Sure, why bother to learn interesting
things concerning relationships between voltage, resistance, and current.
The nice thing about that is, the dang fool who doesn't care and gets into
that lab may do us a favor and remove his genes from the gene pool.

For RF sources, one needs MORE than DC law knowledge.

At age 21 I got broken into operating a Press Wireless 15 KW beast
whose 350 V bias supply was still hot when the side door was open
for tank link changing on QSYs. One of the guys on another shift got
his sleeve caught in something and was severely burned on his fore-
arm, required surgery to put it right. Danger ALWAYS lurks around
high power anything.

As far
as typewriting, might I gently enquire as to how you managed to post your
response to my post? Are you using a Windows based keyboard and clicking
your mouse over the letters? (how modern!). Or, perhaps, you are using a
most modern keyboard - Dang! That sure looks like a ... um ... gee, the
layout looks very much like those old typewriters.

The letters are still in the "QWERTY" arrangement on my keyboard
as they were on my middle school's class typewriters...except my
computer keyboard has the keys labeled. Our typing class' writers
had no marking on the keys. :-)

Frankly, I'm not worried
about code or typing - I'd like to see some safety issues and relevant
theory covered, but perhaps that is asking too much.

Since the tests and test materials are all public, the only real "safety"
issues I see are all the "RF biohazard" impositions shoved on the FCC
by Congress...the ones with the terribly-dangerous, almost-fatal-to-
think-about-over-50-Watt RF RADIATION LEVELS!!! :-)

Heh...I know of several hundred guys in the service who cycled through
a year's service in 100 to 200 KW RF antenna fields at HF in the US
Army and Air Force. Human beans are hardier than some extremists
in the public (who influenced Congress) believe.

No written test is going to keep someone from making a fatal mistake
while in a high place anymore than driver tests stop road accidents.

Why is it when we
mention typing, everyone assumes an old fashioned typewriter. Typing is
typing, whether on a computer or an old fashioned linotype machine.

Nooo...not quite right. a Linotype automatic type-setter machine has
a different keyboard arrangement. One row is "ETAOINSHRDLU"
as opposed to the conventional "QWERTYUIOP." An "office" type
typist would produce very funny type slugs on a real Linotype. :-)

I got training in touch-typing rather long before there was such things
as desktop computers, even before video terminals. Hundreds of
thousands did. To me, a "typewriter" is any instrument that produces
legible text not requiring direct manual writing by pen or pencil

I'd
love to see all of these lovely 'modern' folks get the information into the
computer in the first place without copying it from someone else.

I've personally seen dozens do it no problem at all.

It used to be a lot worse at the DOS level before Windows or the
the GUI concept developed by Xerox' PARC. But that "worseness"
was due to early shorthand-style jargon commands necessitated
by way-insufficient internal memory.

I totally love the speed, efficiency, and capability of modern word-
processors and their ability to produce print-ready copy in my choice
of type styles (over 200 in my computer, had to cut out about 100
more as too freaky). Remember, I'm one of those from prehistory
back when "typing" meant on a solely mechanical gizmo that took
paper directly, not through a separate "printer." Training on a type-
writer that had NO key markings...[learn or die, very Darwin...:-) ]

What gets me is all this "magic" and "majesty" and "need" for a
159 year old PRIMITIVE language coding tool in a hobby/recreation
activity involving radio that requires federal licensing! Stupid!

Yes, having the ability to send/receive at 40 WPM plus in morse IS
a definite accomplishment for an individual. No doubt.

In the 1930s morsemanship skills were in demand in radio. Trouble
is, this is NOT the 1930s, it is in the new millennium where one
residence out of three in the USA has some kind of computer. One
residence out of five in the USA has some kind of Internet access.
There are 150 million cellular telephones in the USA now.

A whole half century ago I was doing HF communications without
ever using or needing to know morse code. A half century later I
still find some over-inflated, self-professed "masters of radio" saying
everyone "must" have morsemanship to operate on HF amateur
bands. That does not compute, that does not compose logically on
a manual typewriter. That "need" is so much fetilizer base.

I've
helped some of those younger folks ... "the mouse is f****d up". Pick his
hand up off the mouse, turn the mouse 180 degrees so the cable comes off of
the back end rather than towards the front, and put his hand back on the
mouse. Yep, I love you smart, modern, young folks! BWAAaahahahah!

I've never seen ANY young folks acting so stupidly. Not even any old
folks or middle-age folks. The Xerox PARC "mouse" concept is very
intuitive even to first timers (I was one of at least 3 dozen at a Valley
store here when the Apple Macintosh made its debut...not a one of us
had any problems with the mouse).

I started personal computing back in 1976, back before the first Apple
computers hit the big time market. Working out source code for
microprocessors was a helluva lot more interesting, entertaining and
challenging than trying a third attempt to keep morse code in the head.

What I have personally experienced is some old hams jumping up and
down, cussing and whining about everyone "obeying the law and taking
a morse test!!!" Your example was dumb. The old procoder jumping
up and down in rage demanding obediance is dumberer...in my opinion.

The old procoder's outrage will be manifest until the last key is removed
from their cold, dead fingers. Screwm.

LHA