Can't We All Just Get Along?
Alan Applegate (K0BG) on October 1, 2003
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Can't We All Just Get Along?




One of the most interesting aspects of amateur radio is its vast countenance.
Regardless of your background, technical or otherwise, age, color, race,
religion, creed, sexual orientation, or any other socioeconomic demographic
from which you wish to analogize it, amateur radio has an interest to satisfy
each and everyone.




These interests include: CW, SSB, FM, and AM transmissions; antennas of every
kind imaginable; digital and analog circuitry; design; building; using;
operating; to just plain tinkering; amateur radio offers aspects from the
simple, to the complex, to the esoteric and beyond. As each and every day goes
by, the hobby gets deeper, more complex, yet more inviting to greater and
greater numbers of the demography. Unfortunately, this also brings out the ills
and wills of the same demography.




Over the last couple of years that I have been sharing my experiences with the
readers of eHam.net, I have noticed an escalation of hostility toward our
fellow amateur radio operators. In Internet speak; it's called "flaming".
Although we share a common hobby, it seems those who do not agree with each of
our selected flavor of amateur radio are to be ridiculed, defiled, reviled, and
hated. While politic opposition is the American way, and has helped us keep
this country free, it has no place in a hobby which numbers are the only
demographic-of-concern to the powers that be.




Unless you have been living under a rock and thus oblivious to recent attacks
on our chosen hobby, now more than ever amateur radio and its various factions
need to solidify into a common goal: the proliferation of amateur radio.




It makes little different what your area of expertise is, or why you chose to
become an amateur. When you flame one of our fellow brethren for his/her lack
of insight, or berate him/her for technical inaccuracy, or lambaste him/her for
his position on an otherwise political position, you're also shedding
unfavorable light on yourself. The old adage, "You're known by the company you
keep" is true.




Everyone makes mistakes, and pointing out these mistakes is part of eHam.net.
But all of the superlative adjectives are not needed, nor the name-calling, nor
the destructive criticisms, and indeed the flaming which is highly unwarranted.
Again, doing so just sheds light on an already beleaguered hobby striving to
stay afloat among the various money-driven purveyors of our spectrum space.




One more aspect of the negative and demeaning tendency to flame our opposition
is the apparent protection of anonymity. Far too many posters hide behind a
pseudonym, or don't post their e-mail addresses, or even their correct name or
call sign. While the Constitution and the Bill of Rights protects our right to
be anonymous, it shouldn't be a cover-up for insidious behavior.




Rodney King of Los Angeles Riot fame coined the phrase which is the title of
this article. If we continue on our present course of demeaning behavior and
our propensity to flame our fellow hobbyists, we will be destined to fulfill
our notch in history to the same place Mr. King has found himself today; A
footnote in history.




Lloyd Davies - Time Lord and Talk show host
"On the Domestic Front"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/domesticfront/