RadioBanter - 05-235 - Any new procode test arguments?

wrote:
From: an old friend on Nov 28, 2:42 pm
wrote:
wrote:
From: on Nov 26, 4:11 pm
wrote:
From: on Fri, Nov 25 2005 4:26 pm
wrote:

Mark, there's something curious about morsemen. They are very
SERIOUS about their hobby and INTENSE on certain skills.

Is there anything wrong with being serious or intense?

Let's see....WK3C and K2UNK spent their own time and money to
visit FCC officials about the Morse Code test issue. That's pretty
SERIOUS and INTENSE, isn't it?

DETERMINED would be a better descriptor.

Some morsemen get positively anal-retentive about morsemanship.

BTW, Carl Stevenson wasn't "WK3C" when he and Bill appeared
before the FCC. Accuracy, accuracy! :-)

(not that there's anything wrong with that...)

St. Hiram went to Washington after WW1.

That established a precedent on "goodness" or "badness" of
"spending their own time and money" didn't it?

BTW, there's 3,796 filings now, one was added on the 28th. :-)

Was any law broken by such late filings?

Why do you ask? Guilty conscience about something? :-)

[as of 2 Dec 05 there are 3,800 filings on WT Docket 05-235]

[accuracy, accuracy!]

By the way, Docket 98-143 had 303 ADDITIONAL filings after the
twice-revised final end date of 15 Jan 05, the latest being
made on 5 August 2005! :-)

Why does that matter?

Oh, wow, I can't believe you would ask such a question?!?

Let's see...FCC 99-412 (Memorandum Report and Order) established
the last Restructuring effective in mid-2000, the R&O itself
released at the end of December 1999. WT Docket 98-143 was
ordered closed in a mid-2001 Memorandum Report and Order that
denied a bunch of proposals and semi-petitions that had been
filed in the past year and a half to that R&O.

But...a hundred-plus filings were still made after mid-2001, the
last one in 2004 (by a PhD ham, no less). He was STILL TRYING
TO TALK ABOUT WT Docket 98-143! THREE YEARS AFTER THE FACT of
closure on 98-143. :-)

That is nothing more than dumb, stupid stubbornness, especially
by someone who has obtained a Doctorate degree. Were any of
those VERY LATE filers PAYING ATTENTION?!? I don't think so.

Your buddy Mark claims that late filings break some law or other.

INCORRECT. Mark cited NO "law or other." YOU brought out
the charges of "illegality."

Straighten him out - if you can.

Straighten out YOURSELF.

In the case of publishing NPRM 05-143, the Commission was 6
calendar weeks LATE.

How? Is there a deadline for FCC?

Why are you asking? To misdirect MORE than usual into "charges"
that you invent as you go along? Or are you just trying to fight
in words because of some frustration of yours?

The Commission has typically published Notices in the Federal
Register WITHIN A WEEK of such Notices being made to the
public.

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking FCC 05-143 was released on 15
July 2005. In that initial release, the heading carried the
information that Comments [period] would exist for 60 days,
Replies to Comments [period] would exist for 75 days AFTER
PUBLISHING IN THE FEDERAL REGISTER.

Publishing did not happen until 31 August 2005. THEN the
firm date period of filings was made.

So? Does FCC have to get NPRMs in the Federal Register
within a certain amount of time?

If it wants to be of service to the PUBLIC, it should.

Perhaps you should tell
them off and put them right, Len - after all, you've said you're
not afraid of authority. You could put in some of your
diminutive nicknames and catchphrases, and criticize them
for taking six long weeks.....

Already filed. See ECFS on WT Docket 05-235 for 25 November
2005, filing type EXHIBIT.

The normal delay on public release to publishing is anywhere
from zero days to a week. A few have taken longer, but it
would be a VERY long search to find a docket/proceeding that
was delayed SIX WEEKS.

So? It took them a little longer. Have you no patience?

I have considerable patience. I also have fun with some
dumbsnits who only want to ARGUE for the sake of arguing.
:-)

In those SIX WEEKS DELAY the public
filed 52% of all comments filed.

And the majority of those were anticodetest. The procodetest folks,
in general, waited for the official comment period.

Bullsnit. :-)

What of all the "procodetest" folks who DID comment in the
"unofficial" period?

What of all those FOR the NPRM who filed during the "official"
period?

What does that say about the two groups' understanding of the
regulations?

What "regulation" states that an NPRM must be immediately
published in the Federal Register?

No, the general public EXPECTS federal agencies to perform
their duties in manner established by considerable precedent.
The Commission has done fairly fast work in the past on all
regulation change documents publishing in the Federal
Register. A SIX WEEK DELAY in publishing is an error in
serving the public, a disservice.

The "public" may not be fully aware of the official comment
period beginning date.

Nonsense. Most of those who filed comments are licensed
amateurs, aren't they?

WHAT "regulation" or "law" states that ONLY licensed radio
amateurs may communicate with the federal government on
amateur radio regulations?

Name it. NOW. Not "six weeks from now."

Not this time! Why don't you complain, Len?

Already done, as I said. Are you suddenly blind? NOT aware
and informed?

You filed before the deadline, didn't you? ;-)

Yes. What "law" did I break?

While you have every right in the world to comment to FCC, Len, did
it ever occur to you that maybe - just maybe - your long wordy
diatribes really don't help the nocodetest cause one bit?

None at all.

Filings made to a federal agency are not "newsgroup style."

I don't consider ANY of my filings as a "diatribe."

The comments of those FOR the NPRM might be considered
"polemical" but then so would those against the NPRM. The
telegraphy test is a highly polarized, contentious issue.

Poor baby, the rest of the world just doesn't share YOUR
SUBJECTIVE VIEW of everything.

Come to think of it, YOUR single filing is long, wordy, and
filled with the conditioned-thinking phrases of the league.

I thank YOU for helping the "nocodetest cause" a lot!

Jimmy Noserve only cares about the preservation of morse code,
everything from "operating skill" to the license test. He
can't bear to give up any of that.

Wrong on all counts there, Len. Completely wrong.

Who is "Jimmy Noserve?"

Mark, Jimmy has NOT proven his "fact."

You have not disproved it, Len.

What "fact" are you trying to argue about?

The only way to determine
that "fact" is to visit the FCC Reading Room in DC and view all
the filings.

How do you know I haven't done that, Len?

How do you know I don't know?

For most of my life I've lived in the Philadelphia metropolitan area.

Hardly anything to brag about...

Washington DC is a day trip from here - done it many times.

Irrelevant. As the song in the musical "Annie" says "Tomorrow
is only a day away..."

In fact, some things I have designed are in daily use in the DC metro
area.

You designed pooper scoopers?!?

It would be a simple thing for me to take a day or two to see
all those 6000 "filings".

So...what HAVE you said? Nothing, really. :-)

NOTHING what you said offers ANY proof that you've actually
seen and read 6000 filings of anything in DC.

Perhaps you don't want to accept it because it disproves your
opinions.

Perhaps you've just run out of logical responses? :-)

snip

Old-timers of the League loved radiotelegraphy,

Is that a bad thing?

In the year 2005? :-)

following the "tradition"
established by its first president, St. Hiram.

Maxim was a genius. You're not, Len.

How do you "know" that? :-)

Do you live within a day's travel to Champaign-Urbana, IL,
and have you read the University of Illinois' statewide
high school testing efforts of 1950? All of my two-week-
long test scores (including a Stanford-Binet IQ test) are
there in their archives.

And then why did ARRL *oppose* the creation of the Extra
class license in 1951? And why did ARRL's 1963 proposal
not include any additional code testing for full privileges?

Excuse me for interrupting your misdirection diatribe but
the POLICY subject concerns the 2005 Notice of Proposed
Rulemaking FCC 05-143. Note the current year.

And why did ARRL oppose FCC's 16 wpm code test proposal
and "Amateur First Grade" license class in 1965?

Tsk, tsk, tsk...you don't stop misdirecting, do you? :-)

Hello? 1965 is FORTY YEARS AGO!

2005 is NOW. [really...]

Of course logic isn't your strong suit, Len.

Some dispute about that. My suits are all lightweight wool and
have traveled thousands of miles.

I don't have any suits with logic circuits in them, but I've
read about some of those.

Pointing out that you are not a radio amateur is not the same thing
as saying you are not allowed to "discuss" or comment.

Tsk. You contradict yourself.

(What you
do is not really discussion - it's mostly long boring wordy lectures
repeating the same tired old mantras and insults as if they are
sacred.)

Tsk. That's what the league does. :-)

Come to think of it, I read Chris Imlay's "Comment" in WT
Docket 05-235 and found it long, boring, wordy lecturing
repeating the same tired old mantras...as well as trying to
take the Commission to task for having the gall to NOT
ACCEPT the league's Petition entire (one of the 18 Petitions
made during 2003-2004)!

If the cell phone serves your radio needs, why are you so
obsessed with changing the rules of the Amateur Radio Service?

"Obsessed?" :-)

Okay, why are YOU so OBSESSED with trying to prevent
modernization of amateur radio regulations? :-)

YOU are "obsessed" with OLD issues.

My old Johnson Viking Messenger CB radio still works, is still
operating within FCC regulations.

How do you know?

By actual measurement using calibrated test equipment. :-)

Tsk, I have working experience in metrology, two years worth.

It is a relatively easy
task to connect it up to an antenna (mag-mount) in the car,
plug it into the car's 12 VDC system, and operate.

But you don't.

Not in the 2005 Malibu MAXX my wife and I got in June. :-)

How do you know I didn't in the 1992 Cavalier Wagon we had?

:-)

Of course you express contempt for all who *have* passed such tests...

INCORRECT. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Bad form, OM, you are displaying obvious HOSTILITY there...

snip

Not true! Most of my "working receivers" are general coverage.
I also have several transceivers. You're not qualified to operate
any of them, Len.

I am not AUTHORIZED to transmit RF energy IN amateur-only bands
or frequencies beyond the maximum level as stated in Part 15,
Title 47 C.F.R.

I have qualified to operate, test, maintain a great number of
different receivers, transmitters, transceivers, electronic
equipment of many kinds in the last half century. All one
needs is an operating instruction manual, schematics, and an
explanation of all the unmarked controls and conenctors are.

Actually, I have co-owned a PLMRS base transceiver and mobile
transceivers which radio amateurs were NOT AUTHORIZED to
operate! :-)

snip

Actually, those electromechanical teletypewriters with 100
WPM throughput are still in use in a few places...

Where?

As TDDs (Telecommunications Devices for the Deaf). As I/O
devices for old-time computer hobbyists. Still used in a few
businesses...who are too cheap to invest in electronic
terminals. :-)

Those are places I know about. There may be a few others. It
isn't a hot topic to me.

Teletype Corporation went
defunct some years ago...they couldn't produce a product
inexpensive enough to handle written communications needs.
Even TDDs have dropped electromechanical teletypewriters in
favor of smaller, easier to use solid-state terminals.

So they're all dead or dying technologies, while Morse Code lives on
and flourishes.

"Flourishes?" You have flour in your eye. :-)

Right NOW, there are hundreds of thousands of data terminals IN
USE in the world, doing throughput at rates of 1200 BPS to 56 KBPS
and faster, short-range to long-range, wired and wireless. DATA.
Alphanumeric characters. Most with display screens, some with
peripheral hard-copy printers for text on real paper with ink or
toner.

ElectroMECHANICAL teletypewriters went defunct as new products
because the mechanics of them didn't allow such high throughput.
The last holdouts are the "chain printers" used in Information
Technologies' activities, everything from wide printouts to
mass check-writing. Those are being replaced with xerographic
or ink-jet printing devices.

Manual morse code "lives on" ONLY in AMATEUR radio. The maritime
world has largely given up on manual morse code for long-distance
HF communications.

Where are the landline manual morse code telegraphy
communications stations now? Where are the manual morse code
communications stations in the military of the United States?

Let's brush away some of your "flour." If morse code
communications is "flourishing" in the "amateur bands," why
is it only Number TWO in popularity? Once it was the ONLY
way to communicated. How can morsemanship be "flourishing"
when it is declining in popularity?

Once upon a time, there were a great variety of commercial FCC
operator licenses.

Once upon a time there was NO RADIO.

Once upon a time there were NO federal regulating agencies.

Once upon a time there were no fairy stories beginning
"Once upon a time..." :-)

I don't recall anyone ever saying that an amateur radio license was
anything other than a qualification to operate an amateur radio
station.

"Qualification?" It isn't an AUTHORIZATION?

Oh, my, I've actually OPERATED amateur radio transmitters and
have never had an amateur license! Operated: Set the controls,
turned it on, tuned it up, reset some controls according to
instructions in the manual, applied various modulation input,
measured the RF output in terms of power, frequency, index of
modulation, percentage distortion of modulation input, harmonic
content, incidental RF radiation from the equipment other than
the output connection, lots of things.

Oh, yes, and OPERATED a morse code key turning the transmitter
on and off! That actually only to test the key connection
wiring...the rise/fall time of the RF envelope was measured
using an astable multivibrator circuit driving a mercury-
wetted contact relay that was connected to the keyer input.

I have legally and successfully OPERATED communications radios
from many places on land, aloft while flying in various places,
from a Coast Guard vessel on water, a commercial ferry on water,
and from a private sailing craft...all doing real, live
communications.

Also in a bunch of other applications like high-end audio equipment.

Yes, by some purists who like the vacuum tube amplifier
DISTORTION effects when the amplifier input is overdriven.
No doubt that same group use "monster" cable with gold-
plating to insure the "golden quality" of sound carried
through such cable...

A small shop in the Netherlands might still make a $16,000
four-tube amplifier ready-built, fitted with nice little
white and blue LEDs to make it sparkle when turned on. I did
describe that in HERE last year close to Christmas time (it
was one of the "toys" featured in the IEEE SPECTRUM).

European electronics hobbyists - a very few - are very much
"into" Nixie and Nixie-like numeric displays and some are
going all-out into making digital systems using tubes. Hans
Summers, G0UPL, has collected a great number of specialized
tubes with the intent on duplicating a radio clock that
synchronizes automatically with the Rugby standard station
on 60 KHz. He already did that in solid-state as a college
project. All described on his large website www.hanssummers.
com.

Now compare that to NEW products like vacuum tube transmitters,
BC or space-borne comm sat transponders...like optical system
detectors using photomultipliers...like night observation
devices using their specialized photomultipliers...like the
hundreds of thousands of microwave ovens using specialized
magnetrons. Vacuum tube technology is known, studied at
length, but it has "flourished" in the PAST in NEW designs.

except by those who can't
hack engineering of solid-state circuits...or long for days
of yore, when they were born (or before).

Totally false, Len. Your electropolitical correctness is showing.

Tsk, no. REALITY has been shown to those who cannot learn
and keep up with the times.

snip

Jimmy sounds like he doesn't have much money.

What does it matter? I may have more than you, Len. Or less.

How do you "know?" :-)

Tsk, tsk. I entered electronics and radio in the vacuum tube
era and learned how to design circuits using tubes. Had to
put aside everything but the basics of those circuits in order
to work with transistors, then ICs. Took lots of learning
AND relearning to do all that and I did it on my own time.

The Army never gave you any training, Len?

Half a year at Fort Monmouth Signal School on basic radar, then
microwave radio relay. The rest was ON THE JOB...operating and
maintaining HF transmitters, VHF and UHF receivers and
transmitters, wireline voice and teletypewriter carrier equipment,
inside plant telephone equipment. It was a case of "Here's the
manuals, there's the equipment, DO IT." :-)

Nor any of your employers?

Not a single one of them. [howaboutthat?]

It was worth it in the knowledge acquired, the experience
gained in making successful designs, eminently satisfactory
to me.

Do you want a merit badge?

Don't need one. I was never in the BSA, anyway.

I was a soldier, a signalman. I got my Honorable Discharge
in 1960 after serving MY country in the U.S. Army.

What have YOU done to equal that?