[AMRadio] My 2 cents

[CL in NC]

There are only about 17 to 18,000 or so TV and radio stations in the US with a wide range of fees applied.  There are plenty of public service entities, but all totaled up, they all pale in comparison to 720,000+ Amateur tickets out there.  We are their biggest customer number wise, and at  possible 50 bucks a pop, guessing they might like an extra 36 million bucks to play with over a 10 year period.  You can bet if they do get it, they sure wont be using it to police the hambands, we now have Riley's gang doing that for free.  We'll see how that works out in the long run.

In reference to the ARRL fearing a license fee may cause a membership drop, they are still around 160K members in a 720K+ ham population.  4/5ths of hams are not members, and if any more projects they publish require 3D printers like in the September issue,  that 4/5ths will be 5/6ths.  There are a lot of tents in the ham radio bazaar or bizarre depending on viewpoint, and it seems the League is unsure on how to keep them all inside the fence.  I was told directly via an email response, they are focusing on the cutting edge which I perceive as ham radio as a another form of WIFI for many hams.  Buy a new rig, buy an interface, buy a $600 vertical, buy coax with the connectors installed, hook up your computer and start typing.  Those of us that actually still like the radio part of this hobby are getting pushed to the side, and we get farther in the corner with every SK.

Charlie, W4MEC in NC