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#81
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I am presently QRV from 160 to 2 meters.
I am in the process of putting up my beam on my recently installed tower and hazer. This will be for 20/15/10, and six meters. Dan/W4NTI "Carl R. Stevenson" wrote in message ... wrote in message oups.com... [snip] How many folks on rrap have an 80 meter setup? As in "at least a G5RV that works on 80, 35 feet up at least") There's W4NTI, N2EY, K8MN, K0HB, and probably W3RV. I do ... 160m-70cm here ... with digital modes as well as voice. [snip] Let's cut to the chase. It's about more room for 'phone and less for Morse Code and digital modes. Some folks talk big about "new directions" and "modernization" and "fresh ideas", but what they really mean is more bandspace for SSB. I, for one, do NOT support more bandspace for SSB ... I think it's unnecessary. The main problems are on contest weekends and a lot of those problems are caused by too much testosterone and not enough operating courtesy from *some( but not all) contesters and the "retaliations" from some equally discourteous non-contesters. Is that what is best? More room for SSB and AM, less for CW and digital modes? No ... see above. -- 73, Carl R. Stevenson - wk3c Grid Square FN20fm http://home.ptd.net/~wk3c ------------------------------------------------------ Life Member, ARRL Life Member, QCWA (31424) Member, TAPR Member, AMSAT-NA Member, LVARC (Lehigh Valley ARC) Member, Lehigh County ARES/RACES Fellow, The Radio Club of America Senior Member, IEEE Member, IEEE Standards Association Chair, IEEE 802.22 WG on Wireless Regional Area Networks ------------------------------------------------------ |
#82
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![]() Dan/W4NTI wrote: "an_old_friend" wrote in message oups.com... Dave Heil wrote: wrote: From: John Smith on Aug 22, 3:22 pm Dan: What is "good for amateur radio" has to be "what is good for the people", and NOT "what is good for my klick." No, John, it IS for their clique...except they can't see anything but their clique as being "amateur radio." You have a point, Len. There is an amateur radio clique. Those who are radio amateurs are a part of it. You aren't. More lies on your part You and I are not part of the same clique Which is what you are really stating, it is just a bunch of "good ole cb buddies", but thinking of themselves in some glorified manner! To Dan the ARS stands for Archaic Radiotelegraphy Society. Is there proof of your statement? yes your support of morse code welfare cut Thank goodness. Well at least "old friend" knows he is not in the group. I for one am proud to hold a Amateur Radio License. I have NO REASON at all to not be. On the other hand we have.......well you know who you are. So am I proud of my license just not proud of many of the other holders of them, esp those that put their mode ahead of the interests of the rest of us Dan/W4NTI |
#83
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Carl R. Stevenson wrote:
wrote in message oups.com... Carl R. Stevenson wrote: [snip] Bandplans and band usage are complicated issues where the ARRL or anyone else is highly unlikely to be able to please everyone - the objective needs to be to work with the different interest groups towards compromises that allow us to get to something that at least a significant majority can accept and say "I can live with that." If I become a member of the ARRL BoD I would work with all of the interested parties in an effort to forge that sort of result. With all due respect, that's what everybody says. The trouble is with the specifics. You've given us some good specifics, like support of a 'reasonable' subband for Morse Code only, and a similar 'reasonable' subband for 'robots'. The devil is in "what's reasonable"? The way I see it there's probably no way to please everyone 100%. That's a given. Therefore, I think the solution is to work with all of the interested "camps" to forge a compromise that at least a significant majority can accept. The optimum balance is probably something that will result in all of the "camps" being able to say "It's not perfect in my ideal world, but I can accept it and 'sign up' to support it." Definition of "consensus". However the specifics are where the arguing will be. I think the suggestion from the CW folks for a modest "CW only" segement at the bottom of the band is reasonable and would ease a lot of concerns about getting "squeezed out of existence." Yup. Would also tend to gather up the activity rather than spread it out. I think that the proposal that some have made to "repurpose" the "refarming" of the novice bands to provide a "digital playground" for the experimenters who want to develop, test, and operate the higher speed, more robust digital modes that the emergency management agencies want is also something that merits consideration. There was an ARRL proposal some time back to "refarm" the Novice bands - which was just a slick way of saying "use them for SSB". Some of us (including both you and me, IIRC) commented that a better use would be to create that "digital playground", where all modes except analog voice/image would be allowed - with primary priority to digital modes not allowed elsewhere. I agree that "robots" should not be allowed to take over the bands at the expense of all of the other modes. Or even *any* other modes. All of this would require some degree of compromise, but I think that's what will be required to formulate something that gains widespread acceptance instead of massive resistance. Key question: Will the digital playground include the robots? Biggest problem: Convincing FCC to accept moving the Novices and Tech Pluses down into the "General" part of the band. For example, suppose 80 were "refarmed" like this: 3500-3575: Morse Code only 3575-3675: Digital and Morse Code, bandwidth less than 1000 Hz 3675-3725: "Digital playground" - all documented digital modes (including Morse Code) regardless of bandwidth. Extras have the whole band Generals and Advanceds have all but 3500-3525 Novices and Tech Pluses have 3525-3575 In addition to significantly improving the general level of technical knowledge and skill of hams, That was a prime reason for "incentive licensing" 40 years ago! I'm talking about improved educational programs ... it's clear that "incentive licensing" created a huge schysm in the amateur community and hasn't really worked. I think the big problem was that the causes of the apparent problems were misunderstood. There was a time when, to be a ham with an effective station, you needed to a pretty good mix of technical knowledge, skill, and other resources. There wasn't much manufactured equipment for hams, and what did exist was very expensive by the average incomes of the day. And what hams used not only had to be inexpensive, it had to be usable without a lot of test equipment. Then as technology, manufacturing and affluence advanced, more and more hams simply bought their equipment. And as the reliability improved, and operation simplified, the need to know how it all worked went down. And those who were less technically inclined found it easier to be hams. For quite some years now we've had rigs that require almost no technical knowledge to operate. No tune-up, no critical adjustments, self-protected against many operating errors. And so complex that most *professionals* wouldn't try to build one or even fix one without a lot of specialized test gear and information. Incentive licensing couldn't reverse that trend. How will voluntary education programs do it if the hams themselves don't want it? And remember all those arguments used against the Morse Code test? Most of them can be used against the written tests as well, particularly the General and Extra writtens. (I think part of the problem was linking increased voice frequency privileges to the totally unrelated Morse test The original ARRL proposal would have only required a written test. Remember too that at the time (1960s) there was a real need for Morse Code proficient radio operators. But most of all, consider that for the unrelated privileges of the bottom of four HF bands, Generals had to pass *two* written exams. and the other part was that it created in too many people's minds the idea that the license meant you "knew all there was to know" - thereby removing the motivation to progress even further.) Nope. Long before incentive licensing, there were hams who thought that because they passed the test they were fully qualified. I recall hams who, when they passed the General, would sell their Novice setup, buy a manufactured transceiver, give away their Handbooks and other materials, and consider themselves "done" with the serious learning of radio. growing our numbers (both licensees and ARRL members), protecting our spectrum, and getting more people trained for and involved in emergency communications, one of the MOST pressing problems we face is to reverse the trend of "compartmentalizing" ourselves into "factions" whose whole world revolves around one mode or one activity, because the resulting "turf wars," suspicion/mistrust/paranoia, in-fighting, and attacks on each other divide us in ways that both are bad for the ARS as it's seen externally and bad for the ARS internally as we get along with (or don't) each other. We should ALL be "hams" (period) and work together cooperatively and constructively going forward into the future on the truly important issues facing ham radio and the ARRL. The trouble is that ham radio covers such a wide range of activities that there's trouble finding common ground in some cases. The common ground should be that we're all hams - with recognition that different people have different operating interests and cooperating instead of always being so defensive and turf-war oriented. Agreed! For example, you have folks who want to use equipment and modes that are decades old, and folks who think anything less than their concept of SOTA is "obsolete". Folks who want more room for SSB (and even "hi-fi SSB") and folks who want more room for digital. Folks who don't even have a computer in the shack and folks who never actually listen to a signal (they watch it on the waterfall display). Appliance ops and homebrew-from-scratch folks. DXers, contesters, ragchewers, emcomm folks. Those who are stuck with compromise and stealth antennas and those with tons of aluminum aloft. How do you get all those folks to see that there is value in what each of them brings to the table? Education, encouragement, and, in severe cases, peer pressure (through the clubs is one way) to "play nicer together." ALL hams should treat each other with respect and courtesy, regardless of license class or operating preferences. Experienced hams need to welcome new hams with the spirit of patience and helpfulness that "Elmering" embodies, rather than treating them as some inferior form of life. As mentioned before - that goes both ways. That's true ... newbies shouldn't "cop an attitude" and neither should OTs. Works for me! 73 de Jim, N2EY |
#84
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Len:
I would like to encourage you to an amateur license, it is men like you who will restore the caliber of the hobby... in some ways, your text reminds me of the "old phart" who coached me on how to be a decent "old phart." (well, I have been indecent too, but only around those of the opposite sex--with their permission mind you! grin) John On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 16:34:35 -0700, LenAnderson wrote: Len: You might have said, I missed it if that is the case, when/if CW is dead, are you going to grab your extra ticket? Maybe, maybe not. That's MY option, not based on the puerile taunts of middle-schoolers who are of middle age going "nyah, nyah, can't get a ticket, can't get a ticket!!!" :-) Hmmm...I started out in HF communications with much more "action" than the average, doing 24/7 comms with high-power (up to 40 KW) transmitters shooting across the Pacific, plus doing VHF, UHF, and - finally - multi-channel microwave radio relay over a half century ago...winding up as an operations and maintenance supervisor NCO. Then, on release from active duty, getting a First 'Phone at an FCC field office (no COLEMs then) and working four broadcast stations as vacation relief or on weekends or full time for WREX-TV to gain enough money to come out west...having already interviewed for and secured a job at Hughes Aircraft. That led to a whole career, major major change to electronics engineering winding up as senior staff in design. I'm supposed to get a ham license to "prove I know something about radio?!?!?" I don't have anything to "prove" to a bunch of yokels who want to recreate the 1930s and 1940s in radiotelegraphy! Geezus, gimme a break from those neanderthallers! What the fork do think a ham license IS...some kind of Nobel Award for Science?!? :-) Amateur radio is fun, a recreational avocation done not for money but for personal pleasure. It involves NO different radio physics than any other radio service but it allows all the choice of buying state-of-the-art radios to use or in building them from their own designs. It requires a license to transmit RF due to a federal law (an act of Congress) that created a federal regulatory agency for ALL civil radio. The mindset of many hase been "conditioned" by a certain membership organization to be much, much more, a virtual lifestyle that has gotten too deep into the myth and fantasy of long-ago times and dreams of glory and heroism that never happened. One argument is that "a ham can have their OWN station." Yes, I've had "my own station" or properly, one-third of it in a business partnership with two others. I've built/converted three "stations" and checked them thoroughly befoe selling them, never once "using" them or caring to use them. I've designed and built two other transceivers for CB, one a prototype for a CB company in Burbank that went bankrupt when faced with off-shore CB products cut them out of profit action. "I can work the world on radio with an amateur license!!!" Yes, and I could pick up a handset in Tokyo, at ADA Control, and talk to Seattle, Anchorage, San Francisco, Hawaii, or Okinawa any time of the day or night, as I did for a while in 1955...without any "license" or even any specific HF with/without SSB schooling of any kind. I can "talk" to the rest of the world any time I want to on the Internet, and have, plus being able to share images with dozens of long-time friends (from pre-Internet days) faster than by surface mail, uninterrupted by vagaries of the ionosphere. "I can explore new radio territory and advance the state of the radio art" with a ham license. What the fork do some of these cretins think I was DOING FOR A LIVING since 1956? Without a ham license I've legally transmitted RF on frequencies ranging through EM bands from LF into EHF, on up to 4mm wavelengths. Gotten one patent as sole inventor, had a terrific time in the labs and in the field, still do it once in a while. I once "worked a station" ON the moon. No moonbounce stuff. I have to learn morse code in order to do THAT as an amateur?!? (I don't have to test for morse code at VHF and up, just for frequencies below 30 MHz...where I began doing HF communications a half century before...without having to know or use morse code then or any time afterwards) If so, ya wanna meet down on 3.840 and give art a run for his money--in a gentlemanly way of course. Don't go with disruptive actions myself... debate and argument yes, trouble no... suspect you might be the same... could be fun, ya never know... grin No. If anyplace on ham bands, it would be on 20m where a bunch of ex-RCA Corporation folks hang out on Saturday mornings. Talk there is shared-interest stuff, not the personal polemics of self-propelled radio potentates. Listen for KD6JG and W6MJN, among others. I know them by their real names, not callsigns. "I can be FEDERALLY-AUTHORIZED with MY OWN CALLSIGN if I get a ham license!!!" Wow, ain't that something (like I've already done that, but not with a ham license). I know where to get a good ham sandwich nearby, the vendors needing only a Health Department license to operate. [great pastrami at one place] I DO need to renew my Poetic License. Time to study for Mores Goad. :-) buy buy |
#85
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From: John Smith on Aug 23, 8:23 pm
Len: I would like to encourage you to an amateur license, it is men like you who will restore the caliber of the hobby... in some ways, your text reminds me of the "old phart" who coached me on how to be a decent "old phart." (well, I have been indecent too, but only around those of the opposite sex--with their permission mind you! grin) Sorry, John, but encouragment requires much training into being a human modem working with a 161-year-old code set. Further, I would have to go into detoxification of ANY THOUGHT of CHANGING AMATEUR RADIO FROM WHAT IT IS! Dan da Morse Man has SPOKEN! Change is NOT allowed. Dan da Macho Morse Man speaks in FIFTY CALIBER forbidding ALL change. Dan is a hidebound, set-in-concrete-with-armor-plate traditionalist conservative ready to go into combat with Weapons of Morse Dedication to rid the world of upstart, liberal (euywww, spit) thoughts of EVER removing the morse code test! Dan is in his command track right now directing traffic (through the nearest 2m repeater of course), ready to Flash Fire any least sign of disturbance of his thoughts. Meanwhile, from an undisclosed location, I am silently watching, monitoring all this from a high UAV loaded with missles...taking aim... :-) This is NOT about having fun with amateur radio, doing hobby things for personal pleasure. This is WAR to Dan da Morse Man. All do as HE SAY! bip bip |
#86
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#87
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#88
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![]() Alun L. Palmer wrote: Yhr FCC has already agreed to let the Novices and Tech plusses use the General frequencies for CW. Where? It's mentionned in passing in the NPRM. However, I think they do envisage simply turning over an equivalent amount of spectrum to phone, that is to say equivalent to the size of the current Novice CW subbands. Not in NPRM 05-235. I just reread it - they specifically deny almost everything that is mentioned. Changes to the test process, new license classes, more license classes, fewer license classes, more privileges, free upgrades, and much more, are all discussed and specifically *denied* by FCC. FCC mentions several times that if Novices, Technicians, and Technician Pluses want more privileges, all they will have to do is pass one or two written tests. They even mention that all Tech Pluses and Novices have to do *right now* to get lots more privileges is to take those written tests. After all the discussion, the *only* proposed change is to eliminate Element 1. No other changes are proposed by FCC. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
#89
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![]() "Alun L. Palmer" wrote in message ... wrote in oups.com: Carl R. Stevenson wrote: wrote in message oups.com... Carl R. Stevenson wrote: Yhr FCC has already agreed to let the Novices and Tech plusses use the General frequencies for CW. It's mentionned in passing in the NPRM. However, I think they do envisage simply turning over an equivalent amount of spectrum to phone, that is to say equivalent to the size of the current Novice CW subbands. No that is not what the FCC has agreed to as of yet. They mention that there is another proposal out there to do this but they have not acted on it. There wording does seem to indicate that they favor the change though. It's not a really hot issue as there are very few active Novices and Tech Plus amateurs out there. Most of the active ones have upgraded and it's irrelevant to the inactive ones. Hopefully it will encourage them to become more active since there is much more activity in the General portion of the band. Dee D. Flint, N8UZE |
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