Alternative Universe Probable Truisms -

1. There would be NO ARRL to provide "guidance" and direction.
That expired before St. Hiram expired. [in this alternative
universe] Newington, CT, would have no museum.

2. There would be NO morse code test since no other radio
service except Maritime Radio used morse code. There
would be NO need to keep a "pool of trained morse radio
operators" for any national need.

3. There would be NO tales of olde-tyme ham doings because
there would be no old-timers left to tell the tales...only
pretenders who longed for a simpler (mythical) life way back
before they were born.

4. The Titanic would have sunk anyway and several movies made
about that tragedy. "Independence Day" would have been
made anyway as a comic science-fiction vehicle for Will Smith
who would later wear black suits and shades.

5. Hallicrafters and National Radio and Heathkit would have gone
belly-up anyway. Collins Radio would have continued on into
the military and commercial radio market without making any
overpriced fancy amateur radios. Yaesu, Kenwood, Icom
would still have been successful in the commercial and
government market. SGC might still exist but in the personal
sailing market. Ten-Tec might not exist.

6. Radio broadcasting would have become successful and tele-
vision broadcasting even more so. "Overseas radiotelephone"
would still exist via the first HF SSB radios in the 1930s. The
first VHF FM mobiles would still be tested by various police
departments in the late 1930s. The military would still be the
first HT user courtesy of Galvin (later Motorola)...and the back-
pack radio ("walkie-talkie" again from Galvin)...and the radio
relay (WW2) and VHF repeater (Korean War) uses...and single-
channel HF SSB (USAF, post WW2)...and aircraft VHF AM
(WW2). HF RTTY circuits would have been formed before WW2
and continued on in wide-bandwidth HF SSB, later to have
much higher data rates from transferrence of modem and
information theory techniques. Cross-country microwave radio
relay would still exist for hundreds of telephone circuits and
many TV circuits on a single link. Government and business
would still have tens of thousands of HT and mobile radios
courtesy of the military WW2 legacy and the invention of
transistors and integrated circuits. Communications satellites
would still exist as soon as rockets could put them up there
(first published paper on that by an up-coming science fiction
writer named Arthur C. Clarke, then a "boffin" in the RAF right
after WW2). All sorts of watercraft would have VHF radios in
harbors due to the success of small land VHF radios. Radio-
sondes by the hundreds of thousands would be used up
annually using simple one-tube (pencil triode in a sheet metal
cavity) transmitters in low microwave frequencies. The cellular
telephone (past legal age in our universe) would still exist by
the millions, morphed into a single-hand package with built-in
video capability. There would still be "headphone radio"
receivers for personal use, sometimes merged with CD players.
"Wireless" would take on a new meaning as hundreds of
thousands of data transceivers linked computers without wires.
"Shortwave" broadcasting would still be trying out digital
sound and finding out that it works despite dire warnings of
impossibility. The U.S. military would still be using digital VHF
manpack radios with encryption for voice and data for a total of
a quarter million sets. None of the preceding required any
"ham radio pioneering."

7. Arthur Godfrey would still get his TV show cancelled. Barry
Goldwater would still unsuccessfully run for U.S. President.
[the fate of Julius LaRosa is unknown in this universe]

8. The Federal Communications Commission would still exist on
approximately the same scale and still trying to privatize
commercial operator testing to save money. Radio use by
non-hams after 1934 grew sufficiently large to require the
agency to continue.

9. "CB" would have been created anyway, a fore-runner of the
license-free personal radio wave of the future. [it is 46 years
old in our universe which already has FRS, R-C, cordless
telephones and wireless gizmos of all kinds]

10. Tens of thousands of electronic/radio hobbyists would be
bereft of Title, Status, Privilege of the Royal-equivalent.
Amateur Radio License that allowed them to add a callsign
behind their names to show how good and expert they were in
"radio." That would make it a bitter scene with many more
fights of the amateurs (minority) with professionals (majority).

LHA / WMD